Sky's the Limit
by Trench Kamen
Summary: Philemon says it is possible for anybody to unlock the Wild Card ability, and draw multiple Personae from the collective unconscious. It will be integral to an impending challenge. But it is easier for some than others, and to unlock that ability, the user must strip her ego and immerse in the psyche of people utterly unlike herself.
1. We're second years now

April 10, 2012 (Tuesday)

Overcast/Rain

The clock read 5:46 AM, burning red. Naoto sighed, turned onto her back, and closed her eyes lightly. They were still fatigued from hours of reading off a screen. Rain fell outside, pounding up a white mist that carried the rust from the window screen. She loved this smell, found it soothing, but her mind was already wired, hot. She realized her brow was already furrowed, and she sighed, massaged the muscles there. Usually sleep would wipe her frantic mind clean and undo the snarls and coils of obsessive thought, at least giving her a fresh start. This morning the loops were still intact, seamlessly still running, dream-integrated, and tightening over her temples in iron bands. Her scalp was tight and her brain felt clogged.

She sighed and sat up, stretched. _No way I'm going back to sleep now. No point, anyway. My alarm goes off in an hour and fourteen minutes._

She padded into the kitchen, put the kettle on, and opened her laptop. She sighed and rubbed between her eyes when she realized how many tabs she still had open in her browser. Her eyes were already fatiguing again, still spastic, not fully rested from the previous night's reading binge. She knew she would have to get up early for school, but still did not finally get to bed until well past 3AM. It was amazing, what a wealth of information there already was on critical gender theory, how many people had realized things she had realized early on as a child, how many people had meditated on things she thought she was the only one who felt, and put them to words-things she had never thought she could articulate. Many articles were already translated into Japanese, but she had also picked through the convoluted computer translations of transcripts that were not. Some English articles she could laboriously pick through, but they were written with a syntactical complexity and vocabulary well beyond her current reach.

Feminism and all its associated gender-related studies had not been something she had taken seriously in the past. After all, feminism was about _women's_ issues, and she had wanted to forget her physical sex, not critically examine its place in a complex societal matrix. All she knew was that society valued the opinions of men more and took men more seriously, so that was what she wanted to become. "Internalized misogyny", was what it was called. Hatred of all that was feminine in herself. And, much to her current embarrassment, she had internalized the idea that gender issues were lesser issues, wining and posturing, irrelevant to somebody with such lofty ambitions as herself. She thought herself above all that. But she had sworn never again to turn away from facing her true self, in all its most unflattering aspects.

The kettle whistled. She sifted through the several boxes of tea Yakushiji had sent back with her from the Manor, scanning for the highest caffeine. The tins had been wiped clean, but when she pried one open dust lingered at the ridges where the lid lip rested, manor dust. The microscopic mold blooms, from that manor, enclosed in tin. She imagined she could breathe it in, catch a faint trace of incense Grandpa was so fond of.

_"You're still wearing men's clothes."_

_Naoto shifted and clenched her fist against the urge to rub her arm, a self-soothing maneuver Grandpa would surely catch. On the low table between them rested her birth certificate, the one that read "Shirogane Naoko". One kanji difference. Glaringly feminine, as her taken name was glaringly masculine. It was the name her parents had given her upon seeing between her legs, assuming so much of her identity from the flesh there. She had been able to finesse changing her school records, but her government records, her government ID, still read Naoko._

_Grandpa smiled disarmingly, though there was something distant, sad, at the back-bend of his brows._

_"You needn't be so defensive. I'll call you 'Naoto-kun' as long as you wish. But I thought you had come to accept that you are a woman."_

_Naoto arched her eyebrows. How closely had Yakushiji been following her, anyway?_

_"I have."_

_"Then why do you still dress as a man, and keep a masculine name?"_

_"It is how I feel most comfortable."_

_Grandpa nodded and closed his eyes for a moment. Naoto held her shoulders level, back straight, and slid her right foot out slightly, now standing braced shoulder-width. Grandpa finally opened his eyes and took a sip of his tea._

_"You know, Naoto, there are people in this world who feel they were born into the wrong bodies. Women who feel that they should be men, and men who feel they are women."_

_"That isn't it."_

_She was shocked by the firmness of her voice, a raw edge. Grandpa arched his eyebrows._

_"Oh?"_

_"That isn't..." She stared at the tabletop. "It's not that simple. For me."_

_"Well, none of this is simple, child." It was the affectionate 'child', the one of relation, not the condescending 'child' the police force called her. "Making your own path against the ones society has carved out for us is never simple, or easy. Especially once you leave the comfort of adolescence, where it is more accepted. But it is a good time to experiment, to feel out who you are."_

_Naoto clenched her sleeve. The fabric twisted hard at the webs between her fingers."This isn't some sort of phase. This is who I really am."_

_"I never doubted that you lost sight of who you really are, in the ways that matter." Her grandfather's voice stayed calm, loving. "You will always be my brilliant, brave granddaughter. Just like your mother, who found a path at peace with her femininity, and her brilliance. She lived in a time far less forgiving for women, far less allowing. And she did not let that stop her being who she was."_

_"You think I do dishonor to women by dressing and acting as a man. You think I think femininity and strength, and brilliance, cannot reconcile. Are mutually exclusive."_

_"I think you do, yes. How many times did you say you wish you had been born a man, like the detectives in your novels? Child, you never had any strong female role models. You never knew your mother in your maturing years. I think you are still stuck in the mold of 'detective' the books gave you. The one that says a detective is a cool man."_

_"I'm not talking about being a detective right now, Grandpa!" She realized she was raising her voice. "I'm talking about me, who I am beyond all that. I don't feel fully female or male. I like wearing men's clothes, and using men's speech, just because. And 'Naoto' is the name my friends know. Me, that's the label they've attached to me, all of me."_

_Grandpa's smile almost seemed sad. Naoto clenched her sleeve harder, until it hurt, shaking. She had always been hyper-sensitive to any signs of condescendence, and she almost felt it, there, at the corners of his mouth._

_"Oh Naoto. Be honest with yourself. Do you really think those books didn't influence you, in that way? In forming who you are, and what you are comfortable being seen as?"_

She had to move several looseleaf papers and a cracked-open MP3 player, logic card dangling by cords, to set her mug down. She inhaled deeply of the tea and sighed. Molds. Molds, it was all molds, that everybody conformed to. Dress as a form of communication, speech patterns given associations and significance by society. Shorthand for the human brain, a form of pattern recognition. Molds and types. A strange doublethink, people self-consciously orchestrating a persona, thinking it represented an authentic self.

_If we aren't blank slates, entirely programmed by our society, how can we ever get to a 'true self' beyond all that, some truth beyond all our memes? Could our brains even comprehend it without symbols, arbitrarily given as shorthand for ideas?_

"Naoto-kun, good morning!"

She chocked on her tea. The TV, an old cathode-ray that had come furnished with the apartment, rocked dangerously on the bar stool. She jumped over several piles of books and grabbed it as it began to slide backwards, catching it end-up. Kuma's huge face was bonking into the screen, which was barely large enough to frame his eyes.

"Oooof, this is a beary small screen!"

"Kuma, stop! You're going to break it!"

"Neee..." Kuma looked up at her pleadingly as she wrestled the TV onto the kitchen counter. "Everybody else is asleep. I thought today was the first day of school. The sun's already up."

"It's six in the morning. School doesn't start for another two hours."

"Oooh. Hey!" Kuma turned his head and shoved one of his eyes up onto the screen. "Naoto-kun, you have boobies now! Where'd those come from?"

_What-_ She looked down. Her pajama top was twisted and the top button open, so her cleavage was showing. _Oh for... _She crossed her arms over her chest. "They're always there. I usually bind them under my clothes. Where did you learn a word like 'boobies', anyway?"

"From Yosuke-kun." Naoto sighed and pinched between her eyes. _Of course._ "Why do you always hide them?"

"Because I feel like it. Do you need something?"

"Uwaa." Kuma backed away from the screen. "Naoto-kun, you look mad. I just wanted to say good morning."

Naoto sighed and looked up. Kuma looked like he was about to cry, insofar as that bear suit could look sad, or cry. She sighed and shook her head.

"I'm not. Sorry, Kuma. Do you want some tea?"

"Sure!"

Kuma unzipped himself from the inside, and his dome-head popped back to reveal his human form, blonde and exuberant and distressingly open. He stretched and took a few steps back, rolling his shoulders.

"Okay! I think I can make this!"

"Wait-" Naoto held out her hands. "No, no no no no-"

Kuma took a running leap toward the screen and dove onto the kitchen floor. He curled at the last minute and flipped onto his back, legs smashed against the cupboards, as the TV rattled off the counter and crashed back-first on the opposite side. There was a crunch, a tinkling as a tube broke. He sat up and shook his head furiously.

"Ooof!" He pulled his legs down under himself, stood, and dusted his pants triumphantly. "Ta-da!"

"Kuma!"

Kuma lowered his hands slightly, still grinning. "What?"

He followed Naoto's gaze around the counter, saw the smashed TV, paused for a moment, and moaned. Naoto winced and grasped her hair, looked at the clock in the corner of her computer screen. 6:14 AM. _It is way too early for this._

"I'm sorry, Naoto-kun!" He started scooping the loose shards of plastic and glass into the TV case. "I'll help you clean it up."

"Whoa. Hey!" Naoto knelt down and grabbed Kuma's hands. "You're going to cut yourself. Calm down. I'll get a dustpan and a brush." She stood, pulled him up by the shoulders, and steered him into a chair. "Just... sit right there for a bit."

"I'm really sorry, Naoto-kun."

Naoto sighed and fished a dustpan and whisk out of the hall closet, knelt to start cleaning. "Don't worry about it. I'm not even sure if this old thing is even worth fixing."

"You could fix it?"

"I could. It's a pretty simple repair. But the replacement parts would cost more than the TV is worth." She emptied the fragments into the trash can and stared at the mess for a moment. It was one of those old TVs with lateral vents along the cathode bay, faux wood base. "I should just get a new one, anyway."

"Like a big one, like the ones they have at Junes?"

"There's no way that would fit in here."

"Ooo-oh-oh-oh. Yeah. I see." Kuma leaned forward, hands between his knees grasping the seat of the chair, and looked around, wide-eyed. "It is really small in here, isn't it?"

"It's an apartment. It's a small place for just one person to live."

"Oooh. Because Naoto-kun doesn't have a family, right? You said your parents died doing detective stuff."

Naoto closed the closet and picked up the tea she had left by the computer. It had gone lukewarm. She took a huge gulp and stared at Kuma, bemused. _The tactlessness of the innocent, huh?_

"I used to live in Inaba with my Grandfather, but he moved back to Shirogane Manor with Yakushiji-san. I live here alone now." She walked into the kitchen. "I'm going to make some more tea. Do you want some?"

"Yes, please. Oooh!" Kuma scooted his chair in front of the computer. "You have another TV?"

"Don't touch that!" Naoto didn't even look up from the tea can; she felt Kuma freeze. "It's not a TV, really. It's a computer. You can do a lot of things with it. You know what the internet is, don't you?"

Kuma didn't respond. Naoto set the kettle back on the stove and turned. He was staring, transfixed, at the screen, absolutely still. Naoto blinked and approached him slowly.

"Kuma?"

She stopped behind him and leaned down. His eyes reflected the screen, pupils blown wells; his mouth hung slightly open.

"Kuma." Her voice was firmer, louder this time. No response. Kuma jumped and gasped when she touched his shoulder.

"Uwa-oh-" Kuma blinked several times and rubbed his eyes. "Naoto-kun, the place behind the computer screen is weird, beary weird."

"Weird?"

"Uh-huh." Kuma scooted his chair back. His eyes were wide and still unfocused. "It's not like the TV world, not at all. Especially not now. It's more like the TV world before we fixed it, but... weirder. There's more dimensions, and dimensions in dimensions, and dimensions in dimensions in dimensions, and all these strange emotions and conflicts."

Naoto stared at the screen. It was still pulled to the page she had been reading earlier, a basic history of concepts of transgenderism and androgyny throughout the world.

"Does it feel sinister?"

"Mmm, yes, and no, it feels like a lot of things. Good and bad." He pressed his fingertips to the screen. "I don't think I can go in there."

"Well." Naoto smiled to herself and took another sip of tea. "That doesn't surprise me. People empty out their emotions onto the internet, all the time, all over the world. It's a way to communicate ideas. And all the world's knowledge is on there, too. It represents a radical democratization of information spread and access."

"De-mo-cra-ti-za-tion-kuma?"

"Yes, it means anybody can access things, or publish things, regardless of who they are. They just need a computer. It's not like TV, where you have to have many more resources, and sponsors, and adhere to broadcasting standards. So you get a lot of deeply revolutionary, unconventional content, but also a lot of crazy, evil stuff. But most of it is just people chattering and bickering, though. Quite a bit like real life."

"Oooooh, I see."

The pot whistled. Naoto looked at the computer clock, hissed, and dropped the tea leaf strainer into a clean mug. She set the mug and the pot by Kuma.

"Pour the water over the strainer. Let that steep for five minutes. I am going to get dressed."

"Hey, Naoto-kun?" Kuma swiveled in his chair after her. "Where can Kuma find one of these computers for himself?"

Naoto leaned back out her bedroom door and stared at Kuma, hard. Kuma was wearing the same innocent, open smile.

"Is there, like, a place where I can go use one for a while, kuma?"

"...try the library." Naoto slowly backed into her room, keeping one eye on Kuma until she finally slid past the door. "Just don't touch mine. I'm getting dressed now."

The Roman numeral II pin given to all the second year boys was poorly constructed. It had one post, off-center at the lateral cross, so the pin rotated easily. Kanji had brought a spool of gold thread and a needle so he could secure it to his collar before class started. He had to do the same thing to the numeral I he wore as a first year, and his Yasogami High symbol on the opposite collar had already been secured with three small stitches at the points of the Y.

He had just finished catching the second post when the classroom door slid open. He glared, instinctively, but relaxed as soon as he realized it was Naoto. Naoto closed the door behind her and walked toward his area of the classroom, eyes half-lidded, smiling and nodding to a few girls who said good morning. She was, as always, full of easy confidence, one hand in her pocket, straight-shouldered and gallant. He quickly looked down at his work as she drew closer, feigned that he had just noticed her, and looked up.

"Naoto-kun." He realized he was grinning, but it was too genuine to stop. "Good morning."

She huffed quietly and leaned against the opposite desk. "I'm surprised to see you here so early."

"I, uh... couldn't sleep." His face felt hot. He looked back down at his sewing. "So, we're in the same class this year, huh?"

"I'm looking forward to it."

The flush got worst. Something uncoiled in his stomach, and he coughed, returning to his work. Naoto was silent for a few minutes. He felt her staring at his sewing, watching his huge, deft hands working at the thread around the metal. He risked a quick glance out of the corners of his eyes, and she seemed enthralled, lost in thought.

"The, uh, pins, they move around a lot, like the ones we had last year." She didn't respond, so he scratched the back of his head. "I mean, I'm securing it so it doesn't spin around all the time. You know. There's only one post, so..."

"Ah, yes. That drives me crazy, too." She fingered the numeral II on her collar and smirked. "This took considerable effort to obtain."

"Really? I just picked mine up at the office about a week ago."

"I attempted to do so as well, but the faculty was... less than accommodating." She huffed silently, laughing. "They all exchanged looks when I came in; it was clear they had planned to talk to me. It was quite a study in body language, really. They wanted me to switch to a female uniform. They thought I was trying too hard to be different, and that it was a distraction to the other students, now that my...secret... is out. Ishikawa lectured me on how in the 'Real World', my 'belligerent nonconformity' would not be tolerated, so I should get used to it now. That sort of thing." She looked off to the side, distant. "It's always the same arguments. They mask discomfort with concern."

"Stupid bastards." Naoto arched her eyebrows; Kanji glanced about, realizing how loud his voice had been, as the other students were staring. He leaned in and spoke quietly. "What does it matter to them what you wear? You're wearin' a uniform, ain't ya? And you're the top student in our year. Didn't you score off the charts in the national exams last year?"

"Top one percent." She said it so casually, disdainfully, like it was a waste of time. Kanji flushed. While he hadn't done _horribly_-much better than he had expected, shockingly-those tests and been fucking _hard_. _She really is in a whole other class from me._ "Saotome said I should be acting as a role model, as the top student, and not be engaging in open rebellion. He said it was unbecoming. Immature. How convenient." She closed her eyes. "They put it back on the person to try to make her feel guilty, like she's inconveniencing people. Rocking the boat. Destroying the harmony. How prototypically Japanese of them." She opened her eyes. "Have you read a lot of foreign literature, Kanji?"

"Uh." He scratched the back of his head. "I read _Harry Potter_. Like, translated."

"That's more than most people read. I've only read translations too, I admit. I should start reading children's books in English. But there are so many books I could recommend to you. I should make you a list." She shrugged and smiled a little. "I want to someday read all the Sherlock Holmes novels in their native tongue, but it will take a long time to build up to that."

"I've always wondered a lot about all that. You know, how much things are different, other places, what we take for granted here, stuff like that."

"Mmm." Naoto nodded. "I would love to hear your thoughts on things, being as deeply enmeshed in counterculture as you were. Countercultures, in rebelling against a dominant culture, inherently reflect that dominant culture, even if in the negative. You'd be surprised how different things can be, elsewhere. It challenges our very most basic assumptions about society, sociology, and psychology. What it means to be human. What is universal, and what isn't."

"Huh."

Kanji realized he was staring, mouth hanging open like an idiot. He swallowed and turned back to his coat, snapped the thread.

"Anyway, uh, I finished this one up." He draped it over the back of his chair. "I could, uh, you know, take care of yours. If you want."

Naoto shrugged. "I wouldn't want to trouble you."

"It's not-! It isn't, I mean, I, uh, have and thread, and... uh..." He shrugged, stared down at his knees. "You know." Another shrug. He looked up, trying desperately to look nonchalant. "No big deal."

The bell rang. Naoto shifted her weight off her hands, stood, and said they could do it at lunch, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. Kanji nodded, and it was all he could do not to grin like an idiot until Naoto's back was turned, by which point he didn't care enough to stop, not even when that cougar teacher with the tits what's-her-name came into the classroom, smiling, and everybody froze up a little bit.

Lunch was far easier than he'd expected. He'd worked out whatever sudden attack of nervousness had gripped him in the morning, and he and Naoto sat up on the roof with Yosuke, Yukiko, and Chie while he stitched Naoto's jacket. Of course, Yosuke thought this was a great idea, and dumped his own jacket onto Kanji's lap, right when Kanji was handing Naoto's back and receiving a genuine, rare smile in gratitude, the kind that went all the way to her eyes. He wanted to kick stupid Yosuke in the balls for that, yell "I didn't offer shit to you!", but he just glared and snatched up the jacket, and began to secure his pins with a fraction of the care given to Naoto's.

They were wondering how Yu was doing back at his old school. Chie and Yukiko were speculating whether or not anybody would believe he had dated-was still dating? They weren't clear on that-Rise, who had since returned to Tokyo, when Naoto excused herself. As soon as the rooftop door had closed behind her, Yosuke sat down beside Kanji and stared at him, hard. Kanji glanced up from his sewing.

"What?"

"When are you going to ask her out?"

"Yosuke-kun..." Yukiko said warningly. Chie started giggling, and Yukiko slapped her lightly on the leg, which just made her laugh harder.

Kanji flushed, slightly, and glared determinedly at his sewing. " 'the hell are you talking about?"

"Dude, this is getting really ridiculous. Just... ask her, already."

"What does that even mean, 'ask her out'? We hang out all the time."

"You know what I mean."

Kanji grunted and snipped the final thread off, stood, and dropped the jacket onto Yosuke's head. Yosuke sputtered and pulled it off.

"Dude, I spent all morning doing my hair!"

"Oh, come on," said Yukiko. "Leave Kanji-kun alone. Didn't he agree to go with her to Junes after school to look at televisions?"

"Yeah, that was real smooth," said Chie. She lowered her voice: "'Well, maybe you'll need help, you know, deciding, or carrying stuff, or..."

She cracked up again and folded over her legs, while Yukiko told her to hush. Kanji snorted and walked back to the door. The laughter followed him as the bell rang.

"Oh, come on, Kanji-kun, we're sorry!"

The door closed off her voice. He sighed, felt his cheeks, and stepped into the restroom to wash his face. He didn't have any right to be this mad, or flustered; he knew that. He was patting dry his face and glaring at his own reflection, willing himself to buck up, when Konishi Naoki walked past and did a double-take, stopped.

"You all right?"

"Fine!" Kanji snapped, and Naoki jerked back, eyes wide. Kanji closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sniffed. "I'm fine. Just um..." He brushed past on his way out. "...got a cold, or something..."

The rest of the school day was uneventful. He stared vaguely at the far corner above the door, wishing he had been assigned a window seat, but glad that Naoto was seated further toward the front so he wouldn't always feel her eyes on his back. He completely tuned out Kashiwagi-sensei's speech about how they were now second-years, one year closer to graduation and the Real World, blah blah-like he needed any reminder that he had no idea what he was going to do with his life-and tried very hard to regulate his staring. He'd love to stare at Naoto all day, cool as she was lounging back in her chair, hands in pockets, staring out the window, but he didn't want to draw attention, so he tried to work out some vague calculus in which he did not stare enough to be obvious, but was not obviously _avoiding_ looking at her, either. It took a ridiculous amount of mental power, so much of which was going into forcing himself to look bored that he did not notice that Kashiwagi was hovering over him until he noticed the class's eyes were trained above his head.

He twisted around and looked up, and his eyebrows momentarily shot up when he realized she was leaning at just the right height for him to be staring directly at her breasts, which were pressed between her arms. He drew back a little, shocked, and quickly faced forward again.

"It looks like I'm boring you, Tatsumi-kun. Is there something more interesting you're thinking about?"

He exhaled through his nose, mouth firm. Bitch knew he was supposed to face her when he answered a question. She pressed her fingertips under his chin and forced him to turn back around. He leaned back so he was staring-deliberately-at her face. _Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down-_

"Hmmm?"

"No, ma'am," he grumbled. His mouth was dry. _This has to be fucking illegal, somehow._ She kept pressure under his chin. He rolled his eyes toward the window and glared. "How you even allowed to wear shirts like that when you're teach-"

He stopped, eyes snapping open. That just came out of his mouth, out-loud, didn't it?

He was so shocked his head flopped down hard when Kashiwagi moved her hand, and he blinked, facing forward again, as the class started cracking up. He looked at Naoto, who was one of the few students with her back still turned, feigning indifference, but she was laughing quietly into her fist. He groaned and buried his head into his folded arms.

Naoto was waiting for him by the school gate, leaning cross-armed against the brick pillar. As he crossed the blank courtyard to the hill crest he saw that her eyes were closed, face slack. She blinked rapidly when he stepped closer, shook her head as though clearing it, and yawned.

"How was it?"

"Terrible. That bitch is insane. You, uh..." He scratched behind his head. "... waited here for me, or, uh...?"

She gathered her bag and opened her navy umbrella. Rain pattered on it, a familiar, comforting rhythm. Primordial comfort, felt at the base of the neck, the pit of the stomach. "I needed to go to the library, anyway. Did you still want to go to Junes, or is it too late, or...?"

"No!" Her eyebrows arched, and he cleared his throat. "I mean, of course it's not too late. But you seem really tired. We don't have to go if you don't want to."

Naoto waved her hand dismissively and yawned again. "It's fine. I was just up late reading. Did you forget your umbrella?"

"Didn't think I'd need it."

"Here, we can share."

He reached out a little, until he realized she was holding it out as though offering him shelter, not offering it _to_ him. He bent double and slid under it, looking around, wondering how stupid this looked, until Naoto laughed.

"Maybe it makes more sense for you to hold it."

"Yeah..."

He took the umbrella handle, still warm from her hand_-stop being such a freak, god damn_-and they walked down the hill to the main road. She walked close, so her leg, or hand, occasionally brushed him, but it felt surprisingly easy, natural. Too easy. The road emerged from the woods and split into wooden-frame houses and empty, paved roads and drained rice paddies, where they took the south fork toward Junes. The sky was woolen, and water sluiced worn furrows at the side of the road down the hill, re-directed into the fields smelling of clean earth and vegetation rot.

They talked about his bullshit detention, most of which he had spent listening to Kashiwagi lecture him about respecting women and teachers and authority while not-so-subtlety flirting with him, and had ended with her asking him if he was going to be as much trouble as he had been last year. When she had released him, reluctantly, after the mandated hour, and he was scrabbling to gather up his things, she had said that she had a soft spot for bad boys, but she wasn't going to put up with any of his misbehavior. Naoto laughed hardest at this, especially because he had done a decent imitation, jutting his hip out and pouting.

"That hypocrite," she finally gasped. "I can't believe she'd actually say that. It's something out of a bad movie, or a romance novel. But I guess it isn't surprising. Society encourages women to tear each other down, and see each other as competition."

"Hypocrite? s'that really the right word? I mean, she's, creepy, I guess, and plays games, but..."

"She lectures you about respecting women when she herself is downright hateful to the girls in her class. She even called Rise inexperienced jailbait, once."

"I think Yu-sempai told me about that."

"I don't think she's forgiven me for winning the beauty pageant."

"You... you didn't even show up in a swimsuit. How did you win that, anyway?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I think it was all a joke, the whole thing."

"What, you mean, you getting entered?"

"It has to be. I mean, look at me, compared to the other girls. I'm a cross-dresser. There's no way I would have won. The vast majority of people are put off by that."

Kanji realized his mouth was dry. He licked his lips, tried to draw saliva across his tongue. "...that's crazy," he finally managed. "A lot of people fell completely in love with you."

"When they thought I was a boy, perhaps. The whole 'Detective Prince' thing."

"Boy, girl, it doesn't matter!" he blurted. He flushed and looked up and away, firmly. "I mean, people always... you, uh... you were always intriguing, Naoto. Being a woman, that just added to that. It was so cool."

Naoto was silent. Kanji finally regained the courage to glance down at her. She was staring ahead at the ground, face unreadable. He blinked_. I really fucked up somehow, didn't I?_

They walked silently for several minutes. The gray-industrial back and shuttered loading docks of Junes rose over the next hill, beyond an abandoned field. Kanji felt a horrible dread uncurling in the pit of his stomach, and he felt like throwing the umbrella away, running, away from himself and everything. He should say something. He had to clarify that. He didn't even know what part of it pissed her off, but it clearly was wrong. But words weren't coming. Fucking Naoto, always knowing the right thing to say. How did she do that so easily?

"Does Kashiwagi know?"

"Wha-" Kanji pulled himself out of his self-loathing reverie. Naoto's face had smoothed out, carefully neutral. "Know what?"

"Well, that her efforts are... _wasted_, on you?"

"_Wasted_ on... what?" He stopped, genuinely confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, you're... you're gay, aren't you?"

Kanji froze for several moments. He realized his mouth was hanging open, and that Naoto was looking up at him, perplexed. He closed his mouth, opened it. A strange sound came out.

"Aaaaah..." He looked around, licked his lips. _What-have we really not talked about this? Does she really think I'm... Is this why she's comfortable around me?_ Unbelievable, how such an observant person could completely miss blatant social cues. _So, all those times she leaned on me in the TV, and supported me, she thought it was totally cool because I'm-_

"Kanji-kun?"

_So when she offered me that back massage she thought I was-does she not even remember all that 'Make me a man!' stuff-_

"Kanji!" Her voice was firm.

"I'm not gay!"

For the second time in a few minutes, Naoto's eyes widened and she looked taken aback, and he realized how vehemently he was yelling. He peripherally saw a couple of students, several yards behind them, who had stopped to stare. He rounded on them and clenched his fist.

"What are you punks lookin' at?"

"Kanji."

"I mean-I'm-" He turned his back to the students, shoved his hands in his pockets, and stared off-road. Naoto turned with him, waiting. "...I told you," he finally said. "Boys or girls, that sort of thing doesn't matter, to me."

"Oh." Her eyes grew huge. "Oh!"

She started laughing, hard. Kanji felt his face flush, hot, and he stiffened, squared his shoulders.

"What?"

"I'm sorry-I just-" She covered her mouth, still laughing. "I didn't realize that was really what you meant, when you said that. You're bisexual."

Kanji winced a little. That word. _Labels._ More labels. Maybe it was technically correct, but it seemed so... confining. Clinical.

"What'd you think it meant?"

"I don't know, that you don't hate women, that you don't mind hanging out with them... that how you dress doesn't matter." She shrugged. "But that's a poor assumption, isn't it? This all makes a lot more sense now."

He stared down at his shoes for a long time. The other students finally passed behind them, un-subtly trying not to look like they were staring, which he felt in his shoulders. He scratched through a film of water on the asphalt with his toe. Finally, Naoto nodded toward Junes.

"Come on."

The field behind Junes was too muddy to cross, so they continued until the road cut off at a main street, where gasoline ghosted over the earth and rain. The balcony patios were empty, which, given how much water the benches collected despite the umbrellas, was not surprising. It was a familiar setting. Damp seats, chill air, the smell of wet metal and the isolation of rain.

It had been a few weeks since they had been back to the TV section, the last day Yu had been here. The big-screen they used to enter was still there, marked down a little. Kanji stared as his reflection for a moment. Rokuten Maoh stirred in his chest, reached up through his skin, and clasped his shoulder comfortingly. He felt like a shock, a sparkling in his nerves. Since the battle with Izanami, he felt a great sense of smallness, a void so great it manifested almost as grief. He hufffed and stepped over to where Naoto was looking at more modest models.

"You know, I probably really don't need a TV, anyway. I watch most of my shows online." She flipped over a price tag and glanced over the model specs. "But most of the shows I watch are foreign, anyway. They either don't air here, or they're dubbed."

"Yeah, I guess things are kinda moving that direction, huh. I mean, unless you want a really big screen, but even those generally hook up to the internet, now. Like for those streaming services."

She shrugged and let the tag drop, stepped back. She stared at the TV for a moment, hands in her pockets.

"I wonder what's going to happen to the TV world when we stop watching networked television."

The void yawned, knotted sick in his stomach. He shrugged and scuffed his toe on the linoleum floor. The Junes jingle played incessantly, annoying.

"That sounds like a question for that damn bear."

"You know, he had some interesting comments about the internet, this morning."

"...the internet?"

"Yes, he... after he broke through my TV, quite literally, he stared at my computer for a while. It was like he was hypnotized. I had to shake him to snap him out of it."

"Huh."

"He said it was... not like the TV world, well, not the one that is currently there. I assume that's what he meant. So it's a totally different dimension. He said he was unable to go in there, but he could see that it was multi-dimensional, uh, kind of strange and emotional. Kind of like the TV world before we defeated Izanami."

"You mean, like, foggy and stuff?"

"Hm." She looked up for a moment. "He didn't say foggy. Maybe 'foggy' in the sense that the fog represented a human desire to self-annihilate in the face of overwhelming existential anguish." She looked at Kanji. "He did say it was 'overflowing with emotions'. That makes perfect sense. People pour themselves onto the internet in so many different ways. It's not just a mirror. Anybody can access it, and change it. Add things to it."

"So, what, it's in trouble?"

"Well..." She shrugged and smiled sardonically. "Not any moreso than would be inherent in its nature. It's definitely something to keep an eye on."

Kanji thought about this for a while, even after Naoto decided that she was not going to purchase a TV-at least, not today. The rain had stopped, but rain-laden air swept into the foyer when the outer doors opened. The sky was darkening. Kanji cursed and checked his phone.

"Did you forget something?"

"Yeah, there's a store I need to get to before it closes. I should still be able to make it. I need to buy yarn for that class I talked about."

"I believe they sell yarn here."

"It's crap." She looked at him quizzically, so he continued: "Well, they only carry big chain yarn, here, and most of it is really bad quality. Like, acrylic, really scratchy stuff. Local yarn store's the only place to get good stuff, small batch, high quality. It's um, on the way to my house." He looked away a little. "If you want to come. I mean, yarn's kind of boring..."

That had been one big lie, about the class, at least. Kanji already had plenty of excess crap yarn to give his students. His real aim had been to get Naoto out to the store to see which yarns she liked. She had never been to a yarn store before. It was a cramped, re-appropriated house, colorful and warm, dark wood shelves of yarn to the ceiling bundled up by weight and fiber. Her eyes lit up when she rounded a corner and found several heathered dark blues, and she exclaimed over how soft some of the hanks were. He was rather pleased with himself. They were of the few yarns he would have guessed, had he been unable to get her opinion; they seemed very _Naoto_. And, thank god, they were all at least worsted weight. Her birthday was in a couple of weeks, and he would have had to knit insanely fast to make anything in time in fingering or, god forbid, lace weight. He bought a small hank of worsted white-he used white in a lot of projects anyway-for appearances.

When they stepped out of the store, rain was falling again. They stood under the porch awning and watched for a moment. Kanji swallowed. Here was an awkward moment, when they should go their separate ways, but he desperately wanted her to stay. Naoto shook out her umbrella and opened it.

"I'll walk you home."

"It's-don't-uh..." She looked at him quizzically. He swallowed. "Isn't it out of your way?"

"I don't mind."

They walked back to the Shopping District, rounding the corner north by Tatsumi Textiles. Rain slid down the asphalt in sheets, oil-refracted rainbows. When they stepped under the narrow awning, Kanji handed Naoto her umbrella and straightened his shoulders. He was suddenly struck by the very uncomfortable idea that Ma might be in the shop, where she could see him through the large windows. He excused himself, leaned in through the sliding doors, and sighed. The shop was dark. He closed the door behind him and cleared his throat.

"I, uh, know it's kind of late, but you're welcome to come up if you want to..."

"...to?"

"Uh." He looked away and scratched the back of his neck. "I dunno. Hang out, I guess."

Naoto didn't respond. He finally worked up the courage to look at her. She was looking away as well, chewing her lip. Her hat was pressing her hair over her eyes, so he couldn't tell much else. His stomach dropped.

"You mean, to your room?"

"Uh." He looked around, listened to see if he could tell how far back in the house his Ma was. "Sure, yeah. To hang out. You know."

She was silent for a moment longer, then looked up.

"I don't want to intrude."

"Seriously, it's not any trouble."

He and Naoto slid through the dark shop across the broad entryway, stopping at the shin-height threshold to remove their shoes. Kanji looked around, listened with bated breath for Ma, and heard her far back in her room. Naoto leaned in with him.

"Why are you being so secretive?" she whispered. He grabbed her by her narrow shoulders, to a small protest, and marched her past the drying racks and stepwise shelving toward the stairs. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered how much shorter she was without her shoes, barely level with his chest, how tiny she was in his hands.

"Kanji-kun?" Ma called. "Is that you?"

Kanji cursed under his breath and pushed Naoto harder toward the stairs. "Go, go-"

"What the hell are you doing?" she hissed.

"Kanji-kun?"

Ma stepped into the storefront and flipped on the light, just in time to see Naoto digging her heels into the carpet, as a reflex of protest, and Kanji pushing on her shoulders. He immediately dropped his hands and stood up straight. Naoto adjusted her cap and glared at him, arching one eyebrow. Ma saw Naoto and looked surprised, blinked, and gave Kanji a quizzical look. Kanji stared at the carpet and scratched the back of his head. Ma was already in her dressing gown, and she hated to be seen disheveled by visitors. She was very old school, that way. She was also very old school in her insistence in being a host to everybody who came to the house, which usually entailed serving tea and biscuits and sitting around the _kotatsu_ and having awkward small talk.

She was-probably; he had never tested this-also very old school insofar as having girls in his bedroom would be concerned. And then he remembered that he did not know if Ma knew Naoto's true gender.

"Hi, Ma."

"Oh, Naoto-kun, it's good to see you again."

She touched the brim of her hat and nodded, her usual greeting. "Tatsumi-san. I am sorry for the intrusion."

Her voice had dropped as low as she could make it. Kanji silently thanked every god, Persona, and anything in between that might be listening that she was so damn _perceptive_.

"Oh, dear, it's no intrusion at all."

"Yeah, so uh." Kanji steered Naoto toward the stairs again. "We've got to start studying."

"You already have homework on your first day of school?"

Kanji grunted an affirmative. Naoto looked carefully from Kanji to his mother, and back, and walked up the stairs. Kanji bolted up after. He closed his door behind him and sighed.

"I'm sorry about that."

Naoto made a non-committal "hun" noise. She was standing awkwardly in the doorway, looking around. Kanji swallowed and slid past her. He had absolutely not been expecting any guests this evening. Well, at least he could say his room was relatively clean, especially for a guy. He was pretty good about that. But now he was viewing it through an outsider's eyes, and realizing again how utterly _strange _it was. It was long, narrow, and the roof sloped down to the near wall, housing a skylight that currently cast slanted, gray evening light. Rain pattered loudly on the thin tiles, splattered across the skylight. It smelled of rain and damp wood, the slight mold-smell that settled at the back of his nose he could never rid the room of. His exercise equipment was cast off to the far corner, free weights stacked under a simple bench, next to his shelving units filled with various fabrics and yarns and textile equipment. Various plush animals, some of which he had sewn himself, were perched on top of shelves, on his old POS TV, on his bed. His dress form was in the corner, currently half-pinned with a muslin draft. Probably most incriminating, his one bookshelf was filled with _shoujo manga_, all the way down to one bottom shelf with a few scattered 'real' books, if they could be called that-light novels, kids' fantasy books, a few books that might conceivably be called literature. He watched her anxiously as her eyes moved over everything, taking it in, categorizing. He could see her brain working, drawing conclusions. He finally set his bag down.

"It's, um, kind of a mess, but..."

She shook her head distractedly, still picking over the far wall. "It's fine." She turned her head toward the bookshelf and stepped toward it, looking more closely. Her brows furrowed a little. It wasn't the look of recognition.

"I don't recognize many of these titles."

"...really?" He looked over. Certainly, he had some more obscure series, but most of them were very recognizable titles. "You didn't read any of this when you were a kid?"

"Not the shoujo manga, no. It was... for girls. I was trying to distance myself from that." She laughed silently. "I had a lot of internalized misogyny to deal with."

"Internal... what?"

"Misogyny*. Literally, hating women."

"Oh." Kanji paused for a long time. "Do you... did you, I mean, like, hate women?"

"Not as you are thinking, no. I guess I hated any feminine aspects of myself, because I had internalized society's messages to the effect that anything feminine is lesser, weaker. That's how it is, you know. Women are considered cool for liking masculine things, or 'transcending' their femininity, like it's a bad thing, but guys who like feminine things are considered... frivolous. Like it's a joke." She laughed. "But I'm sure you're well aware of that."

"Yeah!" He leaned forward eagerly. "I know exactly what you're talkin' about. 'cept I never had the words to explain it. Feminine or masculine, woman or man, none of that shit matters. Stuff is just... stuff. Like knitting, and stuff. Who decided that shit's feminine, anyway, way back when? What's 'feminine' mean, anyway?" He thought for a moment. "And who decided feminine stuff's bad, anyway, way back when?"

Naoto laughed. Kanji turned red and withdrew a little, feeling quite stupid, though his stomach curled at seeing her smile so broadly.

"That's a wonderful question."

She turned and kept walking slowly around the room, hands folded behind her back. Kanji shifted and clenched his hands in his pockets. She stopped in front of the workout bench and stared at the poster just above. It was old, sloughed-through white where it was creased and dog-eared, but huge, and an amazing find. He'd helped the old record store pack up a few years ago when they went out of business, back when Giga Macho had moved in, in exchange for getting to look through the dusty stacks of old poster rolls in the back room. The image was slightly grainy, faded, clearly blown up for poster size. Mishina Eikichi-Michel, as he called himself-was singing, balanced with one foot on a floor speaker, fierce and bright-eyed, clearly loving being on stage. Feral roar, curling up his lips around fangs. It was classic subversive punk; he was still wearing his school uniform, an unearthly shade of aqua, but mixed with a black armband with the band logo, bright blue hair, blue lipstick, classic heavy eyeliner. The tunic he wore beneath his jacket looked like a skirt over his pants, red tribal hem over black. Michel had inspired Kanji to pierce his own ears.

"It's a band," he finally said, after no comment was forthcoming. "Gas Chamber. Uh, old indie punk band. You've probably never heard of it."

Naoto didn't respond. Kanji scratched the back of his ankle with his toe and continued:

"Old record shop where I got it, they used to carry indie bands like this, small print runs. Stuff that's usually only known in the area where the bands live, you know? I mean, now, all that stuff's on the internet, but they were doing it back way before. Back when it was way harder as an indie artist to make it."

"Mm." Naoto stared for a while with her hands on her hips. Kanji tilted his head and watched.

"Is something wrong?" he finally asked.

"I get the feeling that I've heard of this before."

"Well, it's a band. I mean..."

Naoto shook her head and cupped her jaw, rubbing her cheek with her forefinger. "No, no. There's something more significant than that."

She stared for a moment longer. Finally, she turned around and sat on the end of the workout bench, took off her cap and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Never mind. It will come back to me, eventually."

They talked for a while, after that, Naoto sitting on the bench, Kanji sprawled on the couch. Naoto thought that thing he was talking about-how small bands can now get off the ground with internet, get people to pay for downloads, and make it pretty good without having to go through record companies-was an example of what she was calling 'democratization' of art and information, all possible because of the internet. It was amazing, the way she could make stuff that sounded boring and hard really interesting, and really easy to understand. He found himself listening with his mouth hanging open a little bit, nodding, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees. Part of his brain told him he wasn't playing it cool enough, was being too obviously eager and engaged, but he didn't care. Naoto never made him feel judged, or like he had to put up a front. Ma had brought in tea, and Naoto had left hers untouched, so engaged was she in talking, eyes bright. Her face lit up in a way he seldom got to see, unmitigated passion. Her boyish, raspy voice sounded strained, as though she was not used to talking this much at one stretch.

"You have a shockingly good grasp of economics, you realize," she said. "You seem to think you're not very bright, because you do poorly in school, but you have a... functioning, I guess you'd call it, functioning grasp of things a lot of students utterly lack. Regurgitating information isn't an indicator of actual intelligence."

"Yeah, but..." Kanji blinked. "You... you do good on all those tests. You're the top student in our year."

Naoto shrugged. "They're simple. I mean-" Her eyes widened. "I didn't mean to imply that people who don't do well are stupid."

Kanji huffed and kicked at the rug. "Doesn't matter if they're simple or not. You still gotta do well on them to get into university, or anything. 'sa fucking miracle I made it into high school."

"Well, what do you want to do after you graduate?"

Kanji shrugged and stared at the far wall, huffed. This was absolutely not the direction he wanted things to go.

"Don't know," he finally said. "Thought about art school. Learning more about sewing, making stuff, things like that. Don't know how I can make a living doing that. Mechanic, maybe. I could get into that. Something where I get to work with my hands, or make stuff." He finally looked over at Naoto. "What about you? You still want to do that whole detective gig?"

Naoto thought for a moment. "Yes, but sometimes I wonder if I limited myself too young. There are lots of ways I can make a living by solving puzzles." She turned her cap over in her hands, huffed. "Being a detective's always been my dream, but it's not... well, achieving your dreams doesn't always make you happy. There's got to be more."

"..._NANA_," said Kanji. He sat up and half-pointed at Naoto, who looked puzzled. "I've got some stuff I need to lend you."

He scrambled over to his bookshelf and fingered out several volumes. The first few volumes of _NANA_. _Sailor Moon_-maybe that was best to give her before giving her deconstructions of the magical girl genre, like _Magica Madoka_, but Naoto was smart; she'd likely get the irony. _Oh!_ _Utena_, absolutely _Utena_, all six volumes. He pawed those out and stacked them on top of _NANA_, looked over the large stack, and sat back, thinking.

Naoto walked over and leaned over his shoulder. He froze; current ran up his back, tingling, where he felt her heat; his stomach fluttered. She smelled-clean, that was the best way to describe it, like men's deodorant and rain and dust, but undertones of female, something distinctive, something _Naoto_. Or maybe he thought that now because he knew her gender. Her breath barely ghosted over the nape of his neck. He swallowed and scooted out of the way.

"Here!" It came out strange, strangled. He cleared his throat and slid the stack toward her, staring at the floor. _Why am I blushing what the fuck I've been blushing all day-_"These, uh, are some of my favorites. I think you'd like them."

Naoto knelt down and took the first book off the top of the stack, turned it over. She looked curious, a little confused. Blinked.

"They're really good," Kanji blurted. "Really. I know they look kinda silly, but they're really good."

Naoto studied the next book without comment. A pulse in Kanji's stomach was hammering. He took a deep breath and crossed his arms, trying his best to look utterly indifferent. _Fucking amazing, how you can be so hypersensitive to any sign of criticism from somebody who makes you feel so accepted. What the fuck is up with that?_

"You're sure it's okay to borrow these?" she finally said. Kanji exhaled.

"Yes, yes! Absolutely!"

It was getting late, and Naoto said she had to get going. They went downstairs and Kanji riffled through the kitchen drawers for a spare plastic bag she could use for the books. He tied the straps off neatly and held the bundle as she slipped on her shoes, regaining two inches of height in the process. Outside, the rain had stopped for the late evening fog, though the eves were still dripping. She tucked her umbrella under the arm holding her school bag and took the bundle with her free hand. Her fingers brushed the back of Kanji's hand, and while he felt his heart jump, she paused for a moment, almost flushing, and blinked, looking away for a moment, looked back with a genuine, slightly sardonic grin.

"Thank you for the books. And for everything. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah." Kanji didn't care that his face had cracked into a huge, stupid grin. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He waved and watched as she quickly disappeared into the fog, walking downhill toward the lower shopping district. He stared in the direction she had gone for a while after, though the fog quickly refilled her path, and he fancied he could see the slightest weight of substance, the slightest mask of disturbance, where she had cut through. He felt her distance in his chest. Finally, he sighed, stretched his shoulders, and walked back inside.

Ma was waiting for him at the kitchen counter. She nodded toward the table in the living room.

"I was just making tea. Why don't you join me?"

Kanji huffed through his nose, took a deep breath, and clasped his hands behind his back. He had promised himself he would not snap at his Ma anymore-that childish, selfish bullshit was behind him now-but defensiveness was making his shoulders tense; his biceps twitched, and he clenched his hands harder. He watched as Ma added tea leaves to her old clay teapot, focused on the chip in the ceramic at the tip of a wisteria blossom. That chip had been there as long as he could remember, idiosyncratic. Rain pattered distant on the roof; the smell seeped up through the wooden floor. The kettle whistled, and Kanji imagined he could smell the rust-dirt of hot metal as she poured boiling water over the leaves.

"Sit down, Kanji."

Kanji knelt on one of the cushions and stared at his fists on his knees. His back crawled as his mom brushed past him. She set down the teapot and two cups, and carefully arranged her kimono around her as she sat down across the table and sighed.

"Well, isn't this lovely?" She smiled and poured tea in Kanji's cup first, then her own. "There is nothing better than tea on a rainy day."

"I'm sorry I brought somebody home late without telling you," he blurted. He looked up when she did not respond; she was calmly blowing on her tea as though she had not heard him. He cleared his throat. "If that's what this is about."

Ma set the teacup down and folded her hands in her lap. "Well, you're awfully defensive about such a small thing. It's almost like you feel guilty."

"I-ah..." Kanji scratched the back of his head. "...I know you hate surprise visitors, when you're already dressed down."

"I wouldn't say _hate_." She took a long drink of her tea, paused for a moment with the cup under her nose, inhaled, and set it down carefully. "I know you're of an age where any kind of relationships, even friendships, between men and women, are fraught with difficulties. There are too many hormones involved, and you're not always thinking clearly."

Kanji stared down at his clenched fists for a while, swallowed.

"Aren't you going to drink your tea, dear?"

"Why're you bringing this up all of a sudden?"

"Kanji." Ma tilted her head down slightly and arched her eyebrows. "I know Naoto-kun isn't actually a boy."

Kanji sighed and scratched the back of his head. Ma calmly finished her tea, waiting for him to respond. The silence stretched.

"How did you know?"

"Oh, honey. News gets around in a small town. And I've always suspected she was a girl."

Kanji gulped down his tea in one swig and set the cup down heavily. He started to unfold his legs to stand. "Well, I'll help you clean up here-"

"Sit down."

Kanji collapsed back onto his ankles. Ma poured him and herself more tea, moving slowly and deliberately.

"I know there's a lot that goes on in your life I don't know about," she continued. "And that's fine. We all have our secrets. But you can't have girls in your room with the door closed, or when I'm not awake."

Blood rushed to his cheeks. He inhaled through his teeth and clenched his sleeve. Ma waited patiently, serenely.

"It's not like that," he finally said. His voice was slow, shaking. "We're not... dating, or anything like that. We're just friends."

"Mm-hm."

"We're not going to... _do_ anything."

"Well, then there shouldn't be any problem."

"Well, what if I liked guys?" He realized he was half-shouting. "What would you do, ban guys from staying over?"

Okay, _that_ was stupid; he was just digging himself in deeper. He clenched his fists and stared at the tabletop, shaking.

"Should I?"

"No!" He stood, stomped, and flung his hand out. That ain't what I meant-"

Ma regarded him, unamused, but not at all scared. He sucked air through clenched teeth and flung his fist down, shifting from foot to foot, restless with anger. His muscles were taught, crackling; he desperately wanted to discharge the energy by punching at something, breaking something. He clenched his hands behind his back and kept kicking at the floor.

"So, we have an understanding?" Ma finally said.

Kanji growled, bit back a full roar, and stomped, hard. Ma took a deep drink of her tea and sighed.

"You really are getting too old to throw tantrums."

"Wha-" Kanji's voice split. "I'm not throwing a tantrum!"

"Yes, you are."

Kanji sputtered. Ma finished her tea, stood, and gathered the teaware onto the tray.

"I'm just mad! What, I'm not allowed to get mad anymore?"

Ma arched her eyebrows at him on her way to the kitchen. Kanji growled, low in his throat, and grasped his right wrist harder. He stomped out of the room toward the stairs.

"Kanji-kun?" Ma called after him. "Do we have an understanding?"

"Get bent!"

He slammed the door to his room, and it reverberated down the woodframe house. He took several deep breaths, shaking, slid down the door, and buried his head in his hands. The rage seeped out of him almost immediately, replaced by a cold, nauseating shame that crawled down his spine to the pit of his stomach. It tasted metal on the back of his tongue, brought a surge of bile.

So much for getting more mature, anyway.

It was fully dark when Naoto returned to her apartment, but navigable in the light from the streetlamps. She dropped her cap, school bag, and jacket into one of the kitchen chairs, hefting the weight of the manga package. She did not realize how furrowed her brows had been until she sank down onto her bed, package beside her, and rubbed between her eyes.

She unknotted the shopping bag loops, and the first few volumes in the stack slid off, a crackle of plastic. She picked one up-_Shoujo Kakumei Utena_, volume 1-and stared at the cover, flipped the pages with her thumb. Smell of paper, hint of Kanji's house. She took a deep breath, set it down, and went out into the living room.

Glowing blue butterflies hovered over her laptop.

She stared for a moment. Her eyes were blurry, probably from standing up too quickly. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, waited for the blankness to roll from her brain. Rubbed her eyes. Her vision was now clear, but the butterflies were still there, hovering, fluttering gently in blue light, shedding blue dust. One flapped its wings furiously and spiraled up and down in the column, then hovered again.

Her fingers twitched, hovering toward her pocket, though she wasn't carrying her gun. She cautiously padded toward the computer, tense, and leaned over on the counter. The screen was blank, reflecting the blue glow, the on-light blinking in standby mode. The hair on the back of her neck, on her forearms, rose, follicles going tight, and something light crackled across her tongue. She took a deep breath and wiggled the mouse.

The screen flickered on. She had not been expecting the Windows log-on, but she was still slightly shocked not to have it light up in full. The black slightly back-lit, tinge of grey, and a simple log-on in blue glowing font showed up. It was the same blue as the butterflies.

_Collective Unconscious Server_

_Log on_

_Name: |_

_I, _, give my word that I will take full responsibility for my actions and decisions._

The cursor was blinking in the 'name' slot. Naoto typed her name, the hiragana compressing to kanji as she completed the compounds. As she typed, the characters appeared in the blank space in the contract. She stared at the screen for a long time, at the cursor blinking after her completed name, at the small box at the bottom labeled "continue". Her heart pounded, sour.

Finally, she clicked on the box.

*The word Naoto uses here is actually the English loanword, 'misogyny'. The Japanese word for the term would have been clear to Kanji, as it literally means "hating women", but the implications are different. Naoto has been reading online literature that differentiates.


	2. Now you must destroy your ego

It took a moment for her vision to return. The roots of her eyes pounded and she staggered back, stomach fallen out. She stared at her feet in a wave of vertigo, black-socked trying to balance over black-and-white checked marble. She stabilized and looked along the floor, to the green field butterfly crest in the center of the dais; up, to the columns supporting the veranda, rising from low fencing, hexagonal border subscribing the checked center, matte-blackness beyond.

A ribbon of blue butterflies spiraled gently up from the borders of the crest. Naoto stepped back and instinctively felt her empty pocket for her gun. The spiral resolved around a human form, solidified into a slim, pale man dressed in black with an ivory mask lopped over half of his mouth, blue-white butterfly wing over the opposite eye like a blazoned scar. A single blue butterfly remained and spiraled over his shoulder, leaving glitter that sounded like chimes through the bones around her temples.

"My name is Philemon. I exist between consciousness and death. The one who has granted you Personas."

Naoto looked around the pavilion, up to the veined-marble dome, immense and seemingly rotating around her as a fixed point. The marble floor was cold through her thin socks, no lip between color changes, seamless. Her vision was clear, despite missing her glasses. It was cold, but the air was clear, free of miasma, and moving. She faced forward. Philemon stared back, detached, smiling at something secret.

"This isn't the TV world," she finally said.

"Very astute."

He may have been mocking her. She stared at him until his smile curved a little, amused.

"You don't want to know why you are here?"

"You brought me here. I'm sure you will tell me in due time."

Philemon closed his eyes and laughed softly. The pavilion did not change in appearance, but she felt currents of energy, flux, beneath the surface. This was a dynamic space, timeless.

"If you gave us the power to summon a Persona, you must be connected to the TV world."

"I didn't _create_ it. That was entirely the work of the human heart. I am merely a guide. The power you unlock comes from your own self, as do the situations you create. Have you ever wondered why Narukami Yu is able to summon multiple Personas?"

That came out of nowhere.

"I have a few theories. Not enough data to formulate anything definite."

"All of which are at least somewhat correct." Philemon clasped his hands behind his back and regarded her out of his left eye, garnet staring out of bone. "The 'self' is a complicated entity. You have acknowledged both the person you want to be, and feel you are, and the shadow your ego casts-the dark sides of you. But that is still based on your 'self'."

Yamato-Takeru appeared in front of her, a prince in French military white, sword hanging by a thin, loose belt low across his hips. His beaked mask was distinctly avian, as the myth of the white bird would suggest, but as much plague doctor, in the curved beak: the fatalistic nobility of those who would minister to the hopeless, when nobody else would, at great risk to themselves. Arcane knowledge grown of repeated voluntary submersion in despair, the rotting and oozing of human flesh. A figure respected and revered, desperately sought hero by the dying often mimicked by charlatans, and, ultimately, alone.

"You think you only have access to one Persona-the one that manifests from your ego. You have to break the shell of your 'self' to fully submerge in the collective unconscious, the primordial pool from which all Personae are born."

"That was Yu-sempai's ability, wasn't it?"

"Narukami Yu was one of those rare people who naturally dipped into the collective unconscious. He was many different people, when it was needed. He was _versatile_. A self obliterated, a chameleon. More than just being able to empathize with different people-he could slip into their skin, without the protection of his ego-shell." Philemon huffed softly. "You, on the other hand, hold yourself very separate. You're too self-contained."

"Then why are you focusing on me?"

"Because if you can do it, anybody can. Including your friends."

There was something condescending in that. Naoto narrowed her eyes and turned her head slightly.

"You're saying that I am inflexible."

Yamato-Takeru's visage split like a bad signal, noise and interference, and blinked out. A gold key was hovering where his chest had been, rotating. The ghost of gold rested on her tongue, and she held her hand out as it drifted to her palm. The light emanating from it dampened as it touched her skin, cold and heavy. Smooth metal, without any mold-seams.

"This is a Velvet Key," said Phielmon. "It opens the gateway between consciousness and the unconscious. There, you will meet my servant. He will help you on your journey."

The key's weight pressed down from her lungs. Instinct told her to store it as she did her Persona, and she closed her fingers over it, willing it to evaporate into her blood. Her palm was tingling when she re-opened her hand, empty.

A sudden gust and flash, and she shielded her eyes, looking back up. Blue light cut radial along the butterfly crest, fountain-sheets rising around Philemon until he was a vague shadow. The light intensified, blinded her, and the floor dropped out under her. She fell back into white light. Dream-numbness was defusing her limbs, cottony, impervious, heavy. She closed her eyes lightly. Philemon's voice resonated through her bones.

"You have faced your true self. Now you must deconstruct yourself, destroy your ego, and rebuild it."

Naoto crashed back into her own skull and her body jerked, hard, bruising the back of her neck against the back of her chair. She gasped and looked around unfocused, uncomprehending until the falling pit settled in her stomach. Her eyes focused. She was in her living room, sitting at her laptop, though she had clearly fallen unconscious. It was silent; the room was blue-cast from the faint streetlights, the cool night air heavy with rain.

She finally slowed her breathing and took a deep breath, sat up slowly and rubbed her forehead. The laptop screen was dull gray, but on, and she moved the mouse. Her desktop lit up as she had left it that morning.

Her bindings were damp with sweat, spring humidity; her muscles cramped. She stretched, stilted heavily into the bathroom, stripped and ducked under the stuttering initial flow from the showerhead. It was cool, but she just crouched and hugged her legs against the chill, forehead resting on her knees. The water beating her shoulders and back slowly warmed, and the roots of her eyes throbbed from pressing them into her kneecaps, but she did not move for a long time.

_May 11, 2012 (Friday)_

_Partly cloudy, showers in evening_

"You haven't had a chance to talk to Narukami-kun yet?"

Rise scrunched up her nose and crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. The Skype delay fragmented her face, stuttered.

"No. He didn't answer his phone." She looked sidelong at some point in her dressing room and huffed. "I'm not even supposed to use any wireless or internet or anything in case somebody is listening."

"You can't afford people that can, like, fix that?"

"Chie!" Yukiko hissed. "You can't ask questions like that."

Chie finished chewing a rip of yakiniku and swallowed. "Why not? We're friends. We all know she's loaded."

"Well, I can't _afford_ anybody who can go remove things from the internet. One something shows up on there, it's there forever." Rise drew her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs, stared for a few moments. "Somebody has to have found Yu's phone number by now. He probably turned it off."

Sunlight slid across Yukiko's folded hands, cloud-cool. Junes's terrace was half-full and lively as it usually was in the afternoon, and few people would pay much attention to two schoolgirls in front of a laptop. The sudden glare obscured the screen, and Yukiko winced, shielded her eyes, and rotated the laptop out of direct sunlight.

"Where is everybody?" said Rise. She was frowning, hugging her knees tighter. "You told them it was an emergency, right?"

"Yeah, of course." Chie slid the last scrap of meat off the skewer with her teeth. Yukiko had long since given up telling her not to talk with her mouth full. "I don't know where the hell they are. Hanamura said he would call Kuma, and Kanji-kun said he would meet us as soon as he was done with some make-up exam. But who knows where they got their stupid asses off to."

"Where is Naoto-kun?"

"I don't know," said Yukiko. "She wasn't at school today. I think she had a consultation for a case, or something detective related. Her phone has been going to voicemail."

"Mou." Rise huffed. "I really wanted to talk to her about this."

Her nails were neat, filed, folded over her houndstooth skirt. Yukiko stared at them as Chie finally swallowed and started picking her teeth with the wooden skewer, which was another habit Yukiko had long since abandoned trying to rectify. The sunlight was blocked-opaque, not a cloud-and she turned to see Yosuke sliding into the bench next to her.

"Sorry I'm late." Yosuke dropped his backpack on the table and winced slightly at Chie, who was side-eyeing him. "Do you really have to do that? It's so unfeminine."

"Guys!" Rise's voice cracked over the speakers. She looked on the verge of tears. "This is serious! I don't know what to do! I need help!"

"Sorry, sorry." Yosuke carded his fingers through his hair. "What's going on? What happened?"

"A fan found out I'm a Persona user!"

Yukiko took a strange pleasure in watching labile facial expressions. Yosuke's eyes widened, held for a moment; he gaped at the screen. His hand was frozen in his hair. He finally finished running his fingers through and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Holy shit, you serious?"

"_Does it look like I'm not serious?!_" Tears ran when she closed her eyes. She sniffed, rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, and continued glaring at the webcam. She was clutching her legs so hard her knuckles strained white.

"No! I-I'm-" Yosuke sighed and rubbed the back of his neck again. "Sorry. How did you... I mean, what happened?"

"I don't know. A fan approached me when I was leaving a photoshoot this morning and asked me if it was true I was a Persona user. I was really shocked, I mean, I didn't even play it cool or anything, like I should have. I tried to brush him off and look really confused, but it... it wasn't very convincing, I guess." Rise sniffed and wiped her nose with a pink tissue from a flower-gauze box. "I'm usually really good at that, but I was so shocked, and I bet he's one of those crazy fans who has hidden cameras and posts on the message boards and... all that." She blinked several times and stared at the tissue in her hands on her dresser. "He knew... a lot of things he really shouldn't know. Really specific stuff."

"What, more specific than knowing you're a Persona user?"

Rise did not look up at Chie. She was silent for a few moments. "He... knew about Himiko. And Kanzeon."

"What?!" Yosuke's hand dropped from his nape. "How?"

"And he knew I was support during battles, not actually fighting, and he..." She hugged her knees tighter. "...asked if I was always okay with people taking command. Like, he had this look; I know what he was talking about. It was so gross and... creepy. I really got scared."

"What the hell?" Yosuke blurted. "What is wrong with that guy?"

"I'll kick his ass!" Chie smacked her fist into her palm. Hers was open, righteous anger; unadulterated, unfiltered. A comforting thrill ran down Yukiko's spine, awe light in her stomach. Chie acting the prince still had this effect on her, after so many years. "Men who threaten women like that are the worst!"

"A lot of fans are like that. I mean, perverted like that. I can handle that. There are always going to be obsessed stalkers when you're an idol." She shivered and rested her chin on her knees. "But this will be all over the message boards. And it just invites more people to be weird..."

"Have you looked up any of these sites?" asked Yukiko.

Rise shook her head. "I don't want to right now. That's my manager's job; he's going to check things out and decide what I should do. We have people that monitor the boards full time. It's really weird, like, their entire job is them tracking every time I come up online. And they're always finding out things, like, this swimsuit wasn't popular, or this group thinks I look fat in this picture, or whatever. It's really exhausting. There are people whose lives are dedicated to following everything I do. It's... I don't know..."

"Creepy?" said Chie.

"I don't even feel like a person anymore sometimes. Sometimes it feels like I'm watching another person's life, or acting out a character's life. Just so I can have my own. They have to have something, or they'll start digging deeper into my life. But this is going to make it way worse."

Yosuke had rested his laptop on his legs and was typing, hit 'enter', and waited for a moment as something loaded. His eyes widened, and he moved his finger over the touch pad, clicked a few times.

"You guys have to see this."

"What?" Chie leaned over him. "What is it?"

Yosuke set his laptop on the table and turned the screen. Bright orange, sunny sky, a garish banner featuring Rise from the Calorie Magic photoshoot. "Risette Message Boards". The thread was titled "conformation of the pictures and location!", sub-board of Risette World, under the main board. She blinked and leaned forward to see the text more clearly. Chie hissed and stiffened next to her.

ShoutFriendsAlpha

ok guys I finished the analysis of the pictures. looks like they really are taken in Yaso-Inaba 0_0 but that makes sense since we already know thats her hometown. On further analysis I conclude the pictures aren't shopped. kuma's bear-form or whatever we're calling it is the mascot for the local junes (for more on the evil of Junes, go to the politics sub-board) so at least that looks legit. also I did a background search on the other people he mentions and it looks like they're real people, at least, and they're all high school students in inaba. Amagi Inn anyway is a real place, and I've done some digging and apparently the Shirogane family has been detectives for generations, real hardcore stuff. 0_0 Nao-chan is ranked 0.5% in the national exams. any of you guys in the Inaba area know anything?

calorie_magician_69

i cant believe you guys are falling for this jeez -_-;;;;;;

loving_Rise247

Yeah, it's really weird. I'm a Yasogami High alumni, haven't been back to Inaba in years, though. Anyway these are all real places Kuma talks about, well, the Junes is new, but you can see Daidara Ironworks in the background of the Risette picture (I can't believe that old man is still around!) and Amagi Inn's always been there. My folks are friends with the owners. Yukiko is their daughter; that much I remember, but she was so little when I last saw her, and really shy. She really has blossomed into a beautiful lady. And Tatsumi Textiles has been there forever; they did have a son, but I guess he grew into a real punk? I did hear the father passed away a few years ago.

Looking at these pictures is making me a little sad, actually. The Shopping District really is being killed by Junes. Fucking corporate monsters. But I won't get off topic here; that's in the politics board.

calorie: If you don't have anything else to say, fuck off.

calorie_magician_69

no i mean well yeah these look like real pictures i mean we know Rise-chan is from Inaba so that isn't a surprise I'm sure she made some friends there, but all this Persona stuff? i thought this urban legend had died years ago.

Venus_loveandbeautyshock

calorie: what urban legend? 0_0

calorie_magician_69

Venus you really should google stuff before asking stupid questions. Apparently there are some government doccuments that claim all this Persona and demon stuff happened about ten years ago, and again like two years ago? Supposedly somebody hacked into it and everybody thinks its this huge conspiracy thing. The original hacker can't PROVE he didn't pull that out of his ass but you know, once an idea gets out... -_- it's like the autism vaccine thing. also apparently the Kirijo zaibatsu was making weapons or something weird, like, thats the real reason behind that explosion at the research facility. whatever there are literally a billion theories about that, some people claim it was aliens, some people claim it was terrorists, whatever -_- People love to believe exciting things like that, so they're easily lead astray.

Rise-lover_1

oh well im so glad calorie is here to tell us ignorant zombies were full of shit. people dont only believe this because they want to belive something cool; there are countless documents on this. educate yourself. learn the truth. or you can be lead around by big brother the government if thats more comforting. youd be shocked to kkow what they hide from us. apparently calorie would rather be anesthitized with the masses then know the truth

calorie_magician_69

Oh really Rise-lover_1? And what is it they hide from us? Do you have any sources?

perkyXbouncy

i dont know calorie maybe you shoud look it up :p

the-one-in-the-hat *MOD

Gentlemen, if you can't be civil, I'm going to lock this thread. I've already PMed calorie and Rise-lover about this. You're also getting way off topic. This is about Shout's work.

If you really want to talk about government conspiracies, there's a thread for it under misc.

perkyXbouncy

so what should we go look these people up or what i mean theyd know this stuff about rise if it was true right? and we could confirm this? like we know their school and stuff it shouldnt be hard to figure out where they live i mean inaba is really small rite?

i cant believe these guys got so close to rise-chan. especially this yu guy. i want to rip his balls off this is bullshit weve been fans for years, and he just showed up all of a sudden. he doesnt deserve her or know what hes got.

that yukiko-chan is pretty cute thou. i wouldn't mind double-teaming her and Risette, if you know what I mean. and i can see why that guy has a sister complex i mean damn.

the-one-in-the-hat *MOD

perky, this is your last warning re: discussing stalking or other illegal activities. KEEP IT OFF THE BOARD.

And for what it's worth, talking about "deserving" or "not deserving" is stupid. Risette is a human being. We all want her to be happy, don't we? Even if we are jealous... :D Seriously though this is the kind of stuff that makes us look bad. And I've already banned you from the Adult boards for lolicon stuff. This probation really isn't going very well.

love*iswar

I wouldn't worry about it. I mean perky hasn't left his room in years except to go to the konbini at night, has he? Well, maybe this is a reason for you to finally leave the house.

Also you should probably watch where you talk about finding nine-year-olds sexually attractive. It'll come back to haunt you. Nothing dies on the Internet.

"That bastard! I'll break his kneecaps!"

Yukiko jumped slightly. Chie had stood up and was jumping from foot to foot, coiled anger and energy. She turned back to the screen, hand still over her mouth. Her stomach curled again. Black on orange, poor grammar, some guy talking about her. Talking about where she lived. Blood rushed from her head and she steadied herself on the table with a shaking hand.

"Talking about women like they're objects! He's disgusting!"

"What the hell is all this about?" Yosuke's voice was hollow, dry.

"Kuma, they said..." Yukiko swallowed and sat up a little straighter. Amaterasu uncurled slightly in her chest, a comforting strength, ember-bright. _I am not helpless anymore._ "Here, this guy said it was Kuma who told them this. What does that mean...?"

Yosuke turned the screen back toward him and started clicking around. Rise was chewing her lip and hunched further into her folded knees.

"What is it? What did they say?"

"Some creepy bastard was talking about you and Yukiko and Nanako-chan like..." She rubbed her elbow. "...well, anyway, saying really creepy things. Like..."

Rise's eyes widened. "Yukiko-chan and Nananko-chan? But why them? I mean, how...?"

"I'm trying to figure that out," said Yosuke.

Rise sighed and shrugged. "Well, _I'm_ used to that. I have security to protect me from stalkers and stuff. It's part of being an idol. They'll only see what they want to see, you know, the 'Risette' that is perfect to them." She looked up at Yukiko. "But it really is kind of scary to see that, I mean, it always gets me a little bit."

Yukiko rested her bent finger on her mouth again. "Do you... I mean, has anybody... ever done that to you? Do you think-"

"I'll be Yukiko-chan's guard." Chie slapped her fist into her palm. "If anybody gets near her, I'll kill them."

"Usually nothing comes of those messages, I mean, like, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, even though it's really creepy. But, yeah, it's still scary. Makes you feel kind of... dirty, I guess." Somebody called for her, and she yelled back over her shoulder. "I have to go. We'll talk later."

The chat window popped white, seemed to recoil from the muted pop signaling the call had ended.

"What the fuck is this?!"

Yosuke turned his computer back toward them. They were silent; the background MIDI was clear and grating, cheery and poorly-looped. It was a melody Yukiko had heard multiple times, but had no idea what it was actually called. Chie finally made a choking noise.

"W-what the hell?"

The website was garish, a facsimile of poor taste in the most iconic late-90s fashion. Poorly-tiled background of a photograph-the one of them at the train station the day Yu had left-white text overlaid, nearly impossible to read. The heading-KUMAS blog!-was in glittery, spinning word art; the table borders showed default, code grey, and various gifs jerked about, pixelated, without context or organization, slapdash about the layout in clearly broken tables. One picture showed only as a transparent border with a red X in the corner, alt text reading "FLYING CAT!" The text was un-aligned, the side column one character wide, and half the tags were unclosed.

KUMAS blog!

HI! my name is kuma and this is my webpage! im BEAR-y happy your here and im going to tell you about me and my amazing friends! i live in yasoinaba in japan its a really small town and it rains a lot but i used to live inside the TV and had no friends. But now i have friends and i can go back and forth! :D

[[clearly self-taken shot, poor angle]]

this is me in my normal form arent I cute?! :3 i have super soft fur girls love and im really charming :D i used to be hollow inside but sensei (ill talk about him later!) helped me figur out I'm not and i have a ego (is that what its called?) and all that and even though i do'nt know where i came from its all okay because now I have friends and a PERSONA! ill talk about personas later ^_^

[[self-taken shot of human form, winking, pursing lips]]

this is me in my human form! im single ladies so you shold send me email ^_~ (thats me winking at you)

[[ill-focused picture of Kamui]]

this is my PERSONA! (or BEAR-SONA ^_~) hes KAMUI and he used to be KINTOKI-DOUJI but i learned about myself and he changed so now he's more powerful! sensei helped me do that! look he has big claws and stuff like me! oh yeah i have BEAR claws i wear on my hands their really cool weapons ^_~ but anyway kamui has ice and healing skills and nao-chan (shes a real detective and really smart ill talk about HER later! says hes an old ainu god i dont know much about ainu and colective inconsciss and arkatipes anyway kintokidouji had a really cool cape and i miss it but kamui is more powerful and thats good when your fighting shadows

[[photo of Junes, clearly ripped off as watermark is still on picture]]

this is where I work JUNES where EVERY DAYS GREAT ^_~ and i work with my BEAR-y best buddy yosuke! i get to hand out balloons and spin signs and once i went to the shopping district to spin a sign because i thought it would help but yosuke got real mad and said it would make us look like total assholes since were taking all the shopping districts customers and it could be a P-arrr nightmare so i dont do that anymore. but you can still see me at JUNES! i really dont like working in the summer tho because its realy hot and once i passed out on the sidewak but im okay now. of course im okay or otherwise i wouldnt be here talking to you! well were not really talking but you know what i mean ^_~ Junes is also where the TV we jumped into is they have big flatscreens so people (and bears ^_~) can fit inside it. they keep calling me kumada though thats not my name its KUMA!

okay now ill introduss you to my FRIENDS! :D :D :D :D

[[unflattering picture of Yosuke hunched at his computer, boxers and undershirt]]

this is YOSUKE captin resechimat! hes really cool and he has a persona named susano-o it used to be jirya and he uses wind magic and healing (but not as good healing as me ^_~). ill try to get a picture of him but he looks like a frog and he wears one of those white suits like that guy in that movie ANYWAY were ROOMMATES! well since the tv world was saved ive been living there most of the time but still. he has a really big house his parents are super rich and nice and his dad manages Junes and i live in a closet in yosukes room so we hang out all the time!

[[picture of Yosuke's room; the closet in the far corner has a sign that reads "Kuma's Room" over the doorframe]]

this is our room well my room is that closet its really big but anyway we hang out the tv is really nice and thats his bike (but he crashes it all the time ^_~) and there are pictures of BEAR-y attractive girls on the walls but dont worry, i still have time for all the ladies ^_~ yosuke likes to listen to music he always has his big headphones on when we fight anyway he has really good taste in music a lot of its in english even though he doesnt speak english but a lot of its in japanese too! except i speak english i speak everything i dont know why i guess its because im from the TV world. anyway we listen to cds and my favorit is lady gaga (shes American!) i really like dancing to it and shes really pretty and morning musume (they're so cute ^_~) DJ OZMA is good too i like to dance to his music too. yosukes favorit is niklback and l'arc~en~ciel but im not suposed to tell anybody because theyd give him crap for it anyway we lisen to lots of good music and hang out! oh and of course we're both BEAR-y big fans of our frend Rise-chan! shes a real live IDOL 0_0 and ill talk more about her later

oh thats my dress i wore in the beauty pagent its based off this story called alice in wonderland i watched with yuki-chan (shes another friend!) and i really liked it its kind of like the tv anyway i won! i told you i was BEAR-y cute ^_~ you should BEAR that in mind ^_~ ^_~

[[poorly-cropped picture of Yu, from a group photo]]

oh yea lets talk about SENSEI! his name is narukami yu but i call him SENSEI because hes always teaching me things and hes super talented and smart and tough and he lead our INVESTIGATION TEAM (ill talk more about that later ^_~) but he moved back to the city and i miss him a lot, but hes gonna come back and visit! :D :D :D anyway he helped me face my tru self and my shadow turned into a persona and then he helped me figure more stuff out and we talked a lot. hes a very good friend and hes very smart. not as smart as nao-chan but he knows more about life and stuff than she does anyway he understod everybody and he can summon DIFFERENT PERSONAS! 0_0 thats really amazing hes the only one who can i dont know why i think its because hes so good at understanding people, because you have to understand people to use them and its really complicated anyway i can only use one and i think its really neat. anywya his cosin Nanako-chan is real cute i think he has a sister complecks (0_0)

[[picture of Nanako in a sundress eating a popsicle]]

oh this is NANAKO-CHAN! shes sensei's cousin but she calls him onii-chan and isn't she SUPER CUTE? ^_~ shes sweet and mature and cute and kind and im really glad shes alive because she almost died after she got thrown into the tv world. she was lucky since she didnt form a shadow i think its because she accepted it, nao-chan thinks it might be because shes so young. ANYWAY she was super lonely because her mom died ;_; and her dad worked all the time but now she has lots of friends! shes super responsibl and stuff she cooks and does laundry even tho shes so young!

[[picture of Nanako dressed as Witch Detective Loveline. Caption: Isn't she SO CUTE?! 0_0]]

[[image of Yukiko cropped from an old article, in yukata]]

this is yukiko-chan shes really pretty and sweet and her persona can use FIRE! anyway shes super nice and smart and always hangs out with Chie-chan their best friends. anyway konohana sakuya is really pretty to so is amaterasu anyway shes really powerful at magic may be more powerful than me (dont tell ^_~) but anyway yuki-chans going to run the amagi in but shes really bad at cooking but dont tell her i said that ^_~ the amagi in is real nice it has hot springs. anyway she was the first person we rescued from the TV and she was a princess and now shes not waiting for her prince to save her but anyway she does gyaku-nan* and she said shed show us her panties but she hasnt done that yet. i bet their really nice. its okay yuki-chan, ill be your hot stud :3 she laughs a lot sometimes she starts laughing and cant breathe because shes laughing so hard ^_^ i really like laughing too!

[[picture of Chie lounging and eating a steak stick]]

oh this is chie-chan as i said shes really close with yuki-chan anyway shes real tough and brave and someday shes going to be a police officer! I cant wait to see her in her uniform *_* yuki and her hang out a lot theyv nown each other for years, chie is sort of like a prince if yukiko is a princess i mean like she's always protecting her idk. *_* her persona is tomoe and then suzuka gongen their both tough girl warriors just like chie-chan! she can use some ice magic (not nearly as strong as me tho ^_~) but mostly shes just super strong and kicks shadows ass-s. oh she LOVES meat ^_^ shes THE CARNIVOR WHO REGEKTD WOMANHOD! her favorit is stake we go get stake all the time ^_~ anyway she didt get thron into the tv but her shadow was real scary it was this woman with a whip sitting on a bunch of girls anyway it was kind of hot i dont kno why *_* but shes okay now. well of course shes okay otherwise she wouldnt have a persona! ^_~

[[picture of Naoto from the Amagi Inn hot spring Kuma somehow got]]

oh its NAO-CHAN! shes actually a girl (you can see that ^_~) and yeah she has really nice boobs but usually their hidden i dont know why their really nice *_* anyway we thought nao-chan was a boy! (! 0_0 !) for a long time she has a really deep voice and says 'boku'* and wears a boys uniform but shes still really pretty no matter what she wears ask kanji ^_~ she thot people wouldnt respect her if they knew she was a girl i dont kow why thats pretty stupid (not her, people ^_~) anyway she's a GENIUS! 0_0 shes a real detective but she doesnt have a magic mirror she has a REAL GUN! 0_0 her shadow was even a mad scientist it was really scary 0_0 her personas sukuna-hikona and yamato-takeru are real small just like her but their real powerful they use dark and light magic and nao-chan is really smart she finds enemys weakness-s (not as good as Rise-chan thou) and thinks a lot about stuff. kanji-kun is in love with her he gets all red and stutters when shes around. but hell have to get through me first -_- (this is me glaring)

[[picture of Rise posing with human Kuma, peace signs]]

Oh yeah this is RISE-CHAN! shes a real idol shes called risette and shes super famous and super talented and super pretty! her shadow said she was going to BEAR it all for us but it didnt we beat it and anyway my shadow showed up a shadow after that so we didnt have time -_- anyway her personas ar himiko and kanzeon and she doesnt fight but she supports us and scans the enemy and its really amazing *_* oh yeah shes senseis girlfriend! but dont tell anyone its supposed to be a secret ^_~ their really cute togeher anywa she took a break for a while she was really stressed out and worked with her grandma at marukyu Tofu (its really good by the way you should go! ^_~ but im glad Rise-chan doesn't make it she makes everything really spicy ^_^;;) and she was even in yasogami high for a while with sensei and everybody else (and she was gorgeous in her uniform *_*) she was sad people only knew one side of her thats risette but she has lots of sides to her and im sure youd love all of her toO! she just kant show that because of p-arr (again what is that? 0_0) and manetaneing an ilushon (?) but thats realy hard on her i think p-arr is stupid if it meens you cant be yourself. anyway shes tougher than she looks and really versitile just like tofu well maybe she lerned that from tofu? just kidding! ^_~ she way pretyier than tofu but her skin is as soft trust me i felt it ^_~ but shes also a super nice person so thats more important than being pretty but shes still really pretty! and she can sing and dance BEAR-y well! she promised wed do karaoke we still havnt done it yet.

[[picture of Kanji looking sidelong at the camera while crocheting]]

this is Kanji-kun! he looks super mean but dont worry hes actually super nice well he acts real gruff and tells people to get bent a lot but hes real nice deep down ^_^ hes a big guy real muscular and hes real tough in battle (he even uses chairs and tables and stuff as weapons 0_0) and his personas take-mikazuchi and rokuten-maoh are really big too theyll lay the smackdown on your ass ^_^ anyway kanji uses lightning its really cool and believe it or not hes super good at nitting and croshaying and sowing and all that craft stuff (even thoh he doesnt look like it!) he lives at tatsumi tekstiles so it makes sense hed like crafts anyway one of the reasons he acts so tuff is people made fun of him for liking that stuff and being a boy and i think thats stupid! (people not kanji ^_~) so he acts kind of tuff cause of that but now hes okay with beeing manly and tough AND liking cute things ^_^ people dont have to be stayiohtipes their real compleks. anyway so yea he rejekted people before they could rejectk him but its okay now he has us! and it dosnt matter what anybody else thinks! oh i think hes gay? i dont know well he cant be gay if he likes nao-chan ^_^;; (well nao-chan said theres a spektrum of seckusality so you dont have to be gay or strait so thats cool i like girls tho ^_^;;) but he liked her before we knew she was a girl but anyway his shadow was in a fundoshi looking for men in the bad bad bathhouse (0_0) anyway maybe he likes guys and girls i dont think he knows ether but that dosnt mater because hes our kanji and thats most important! oh and his real hair is black he bleechs it ^_~

"Oh, you found my webpage!"

Yukiko started again. Kuma was leaning over them in human form and looking at the screen, infuriatingly pleased.

"I worked BEAR-y hard on it. I hope-GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK."

Yosuke had grabbed him by the neck and was shaking, hard. Kuma continued to yell strange, gurgling distress noises. Several people had turned toward them.

"Shut _up_!" Yosuke yelled. "What the hell have you _done_?"

Kuma gasped and keened in a high-pitched whine. "Y-Y-Y-Yosuke, y-y-ou're hur-r-r-r-rting-"

"Hanamura-kun, stop!"

Yukiko stood and grabbed Yosuke by the wrist, his pulse twitched under her thumb, rolling between tendons, and pulled his hand back as he relaxed. Kuma rubbed his throat and babbled something about Yosuke hurting him, what was that all about, he thought they were friends-

"Kuma-kun." It took considerable effort to keep her voice calm; it came out strained and low. "When did you put this online?"

"Ah-" Kuma slid his hand from his throat to rub the back of his neck. "Let me think. It was before breakfast yesterday, so-"

"Yesterday."

"Y-yeah. Yuki-chan, why are you glaring at me like that?" He looked over at Chie, who was barely restraining coiled, violent energy with her hands on her hips. "Chie-chan...?"

"Shut _up_!" Her voice was cracking. "What were you thinking?"

"What was I _thinking_?" _Oh God, he really doesn't understand._ "Ah... well, I'd started working on it a few days ago, Tuesday I think, and I really wanted it to be good, so I took my time uploading it, and it didn't get done until this morning..."

"No!" Yosuke rubbed his forehead. "What were you thinking when you made this in the first place? Do you have no fucking brain?"

"Hey! I wrote really nice things about you!"

"That's... debatable, and really beside the point." Yosuke sighed. "Pervy comments aside-"

"Yeah!" said Yukiko. "When are you going to drop this whole 'gyaku-nan' thing? That isn't the kind of thing you tell people!"

Though he could be annoying, it was hard to feel completely skeezed out by Kuma. It had taken them a while to figure out why. Chie and Yukiko had finally agreed it came from some nebulous lack of entitlement a lot of guys seemed to have. He just blurted what he thought completely innocently, without any regard for context or society or history. It was probably also the only reason Chie had not broken his nose by now.

And the sometimes he _really_ had no sense of social context.

"I didn't _tell_ people! I put it on my webpage!"

"_What the hell do you think a webpage is, you stupid bear!?_"

"Hey!" Kuma hunched his shoulders and glared at Yosuke. "I'm not stupid! I know what a webpage is! It's a cool thing to show my friends and learn about me and stuff!"

"Wha-" Chie's face went slack with shock. "You don't get that anybody can look up your webpage?"

"If people are searching for Kuma, I'll tell them about me."

"NO!" Yosuke rubbed his temples between forefinger and thumb. "Anybody who is looking up anything to do with anything on your web page can find it. Do you know how search engines work? They don't have to be looking up Kuma the Biggest Dumbfucker Bear on Earth to get to your webpage."

"HEY!"

"Kuma, anything you wrote about can be looked up on there," said Yukiko. "Like, say... Kujikawa Rise, for example."

"Oh, yeah, Rise-chan has lots of fans, doesn't she?" He smiled and clapped. "Ooh! That means a lot of people will visit my website!"

"That's not a good thing!" Chie yelled.

"Wait..." Yukiko turned back to the laptop, which had mercifully stopped looping the background MIDI. "How many people _have_ visited your website, anyway?"

"Oooh, there's a hit counter thing at the bottom. Let's check that out."

"For what it's worth..." Yosuke leaned back as Kuma leaned over him to scroll down the screen. "Nobody's used a hit counter or background MIDI on a webpage since, like, 1999."

"Aha!" Kuma stood up. A faux-digital counter at the bottom of the page read 101,421 hits. "Kuma's already super popular!"

"Oh my fucking God..." Yosuke groaned.

"One-hundred-and-one thousand hits?" Chie's entire face had gone slack. "Since this morning?"

"Is that a lot?"

"YES." Yosuke tabbed into one of the Risette message board threads. "And it's like 99% people like this!"

Kuma leaned back over and squinted at the screen. His neck was inches from Yukiko's face; he smelled of clean laundry, cotton, warm. She looked toward peripheral movement at the patio doors; Kanji was walking up drinking from a soda fountain cup.

"Sorry I'm late." He looked over them, Kuma reading the screen, moving his lips; Yosuke with his head in his hand, Chie wan but rigid, hands shoved into her jacket pockets. Yukiko looked back down at her folded hands.

"Hi."

"Hey, what the hell's going on here?" He met Chie's eyes, blinked, looked down at Yukiko, who returned to determinedly focusing on the pattern of her skirt. Otherwise she might start crying. "Guys...?"

She felt Chie move, walk around the table to sit next to her, put her arm around her shoulders. Lean, corded muscle through windbreaker fabric, lavender-scented deodorant and clean sweat. Yukiko grabbed her dangling hand and leaned into her side, head on her shoulder. Chie squeezed her hand; her stomach calmed, the muscles in her back relaxed.

"Wha..." Kanji was still looking back and forth, jaw slack. "Did-did somebody die or somethin'?"

"Oh, you're in trouble now, Kuma." Kuma did not look up from his reading at Yosuke. "Wait until Kanji-kun reads what you wrote about him."

"Wr...wrote about me? 'the hell are you talking about?"

"Rrrraaaaaawrrr!" Kuma's eyes re-focused, hard, and he smacked his palms into the table on either side of the laptop. Yukiko jumped. "What is wrong with people? That is _so rude_!"

"_Now_ you're getting an idea of the kind of people finding this?" Yosuke looked up from his hand as Kanji walked around the table and leaned over Kuma to stare at the screen. He squinted slightly.

"The Risette Lovers Message Board...? 'the hell you lookin' at that?"

"Our wonderful, brilliant friend here has decided to make a webpage about us."

"A-about us? What do you mean?"

Yosuke leaned over and clicked something. Kanji leaned down further; Kuma slinked away so he could sit on the bench. Kanji blinked, his eyes widened, re-focused, and read down the page. Yukiko leaned back into Chie's warmth, more comforting than she would admit, and watched his expressions. Shocked, irritated, flustered, confused. Finally angry. His expression froze on angry.

"Ah..." Kuma stood up. "I've got to get back to my shift."

"_Don't you fucking dare!_"

Yukiko winced as Kanji sprung up and grabbed Kuma by the back of his collar; Chie's arm tightened instinctively. Kuma made a high-pitched keening noise and grabbed at Kanji's hand.

"K-Kanji-kun, pleeeease-"

"Shut up!-"

"Hey!" Now it was Yosuke's turn to rescue Kuma from being strangled. He tugged at Kanji's wrist. "Would you _pipe down_? People are really starting to stare at us!"

People _were_ really starting to stare at them. Kanji made a 'tsk' noise and shook Kuma free. Kuma rubbed his throat.

"Mou! That really hurt!"

"You shut up."

"What, 'shut up, shut up', is that all you have to say?"

"OKAY!" Yosuke braced and struck Kanji in the chest with his forearm before he could lunge forward. "Maybe we should take this somewhere else?"

Chie snorted softly. "_You're_ actually being the voice of reason here?"

"Shut up!"

It was a very inappropriate time to start giggling. But it bubbled up, carrying sour bile, and Yukiko had to cover her mouth for a few moments. The bile-tasted spread out on her tongue, sick fear, and she stopped, now almost on the verge of tears.

_Oh that's really useful. Become hysterical. _

"Yukiko-chan..."

Yukiko shook her head furiously and covered her eyes, then buried her face in Chie's shoulder. Chie sighed and rubbed her back. Deodorant, hint of sweat, decidedly female, humid in her trapped breath. The boys had gone silent. Finally, she heard Yosuke sigh.

"Look, let's just go back to my house, all right? We can-try to kill each other there."

"This is a huge breach in security. You do realize that, don't you?"

Naoto narrowed her eyes and huffed into her tea, sending steam over her upper lip. Mitsuru stared at her.

"I am not taking this lightly, if that is what you mean."

"There has been a manifold interest in the Persona rumors since yesterday morning. We could tolerate a few diehard enclaves and conspiracy nuts, but this is making its way into the mainstream. Interest in the Incident has spiked. This has all been given fresh validation by that stupid webpage."

"But all of it is true."

"Yes, that is the problem." Mitsuru poured Naoto more tea, and Naoto automatically reciprocated, standing slightly to lean over the table. The limo was smooth enough that this was not difficult. "This is the last thing we need right now. I thought the only problem we would have is your friends trying to get involved in the hijacking case behind our backs."

Naoto smirked and sat back. "You know about that?"

"Of course we know those idiots are going to try to get involved, especially after that cartoonish display of pointed nonchalance when I told them _not_ to get involved." Mitsuru smiled slightly and shrugged, eyes closed. "But I would have expected no less of them anyway."

"They aren't exactly subtle, are they?"

"Yamagishi has been trying to trace the rumor intensity and validation as it moves up through more reputable sources, and is entertained by more reputable people. People who, when they spread rumors, have others believe them. There is a lot of noise in this, you know, as information tends to get exaggerated and distorted as it is passed along, but that is small consolation right now."

"You don't think the distortion of information will help shield you?"

"Have you heard of the Sumaru City incident?"

Naoto blinked and set her cup down. Something about that tugged at the back of her mind, a ghost along the back of her brain, but when she tried to follow the thread it presented through her memory, the information slid out as though through a sieve.

"It sounds familiar."

"The space around Sumaru City is still fractured. It flares up in our equipment, and usually just scrambles any scans we try to perform. What little Yamagishi can sense with Juno seems like a dimensional fold, or two alternate timelines superimposed in the same space. The people who lived there are also fractured entities. It's like two dimensions co-existing in a bubble of our reality. It should not be physically possible. You're familiar with the Kuzunoha Clan, I assume. I understand they have a complicated history with the Shirogane Clan."

"Complicated and long, yes."

"They had a satellite office there during the incident. A couple of their operatives who were working there at the time were Persona users, years before that. I think that allowed them to be aware of their own fractured existence. Anyway, they said that around that time rumors had this magical ability to come true, just by being spread. It was as though the minds of the people created their physical reality."

Naoto blinked. Mitsuru sighed and took a deep drink of you tea.

"What I'm getting at is: be careful what you wish for." She pushed the intercom button on her armrest. "What's our status?"

"About five minutes out."

She nodded and removed her finger. Naoto twisted to look out the window, but it was quite opaque, and night had already fallen. They still had to be in Yaso-Inaba, though. They had not been driving that long from their meeting in the junkyard. The lights were spaced as one would expect in a residential area.

The car stopped. Mitsuru opened the door and stepped out, Naoto following. She looked around and frowned.

"The Hanamura residence?"

Mitsuru smiled and shrugged. "I have it on good authority most of our party is gathering here."

The Hanamura family was probably the most affluent in Inaba. Their house reflected this. But it was country rich, still clashing with Mitsuru's luxuriant fur (fake, Naoto had found out after burning a fiber she had found left on her jacket) and designer boots. But Mitsuru made every place she went seem tawdy in comparison to her regal composure. She had an animal grace-of an exotic and gorgeous animal, to be sure, but there was certainly a queen-like composure, cat-like distance. _She is very openly a woman, and yet, she is utterly respected. Did she have to fight for that? Or is her aura just that powerful?_

_What can I do to be that powerful?_

Yosuke's mother answered the door, blinking and none-too-subtly looking Mitsuru over in shock. Naoto removed her hat and bowed slightly.

"Hanamura-san, good evening."

"Oh... Naoto-kun." She blinked and stood aside to allow them in. Naoto could toe her shoes off, but Mitsuru had to lean against the wall to pull off knee-high boots. "Everybody else is gathered in the den. Is this some kind of... meeting for school?"

Mitsuru smiled and bowed. "I thank you for your invitation into your home. I am Kirijo Mitsuru, president of the Kirijo Group. I am here to discuss a scholarship opportunity with these students."

Naoto started and stared openly at Mitsuru, whose eyes were still on Yosuke's mom. She blustered-had been fidgeting since she heard 'Kirijo'-and wrung her hands in her apron.

"A-ah-scholarship? From the Kirijo Group?"

"Indeed. We seek out exceptional students and offer them a rather marvelous opportunity."

Yosuke's mom blinked, obviously struggling with the idea of her son belonging to the category of "exceptional students", as Mitsuru slid past her down the hall. Naoto padded after her.

"Scholarship?" she whispered.

"Indeed."

Everybody looked up when Mitsuru slid the den door open. Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, and Kanji were sitting around a low table with a tea spread. Naoto could see around Mitsuru's shoulder, but she assumed she was not visible until Mitsuru stepped into the room and fluffed her hair out behind her. She automatically focused on Kanji. For a split second he started to grin, open and spontaneous, but immediately sobered and stared down to drink his tea, shifting uncomfortably. His face was growing red.

People had always told Naoto despite her piercing observational skills she was absolutely oblivious to social cues that, to everybody else, were glaringly obvious. Well, apparently that defect was more pronounced than she had thought. Her nickname in that stupid tournament contained the phrase "KY Detective", so it must have been a prominent issue of enough severity to warrant being characterized by it. She was not sure if it was a functional blind-spot, or if she just had never cared enough to notice. But after reading Kuma's amazingly ill-conceived webpage (and wondering where the hell he had gotten those bathhouse pictures), she realized she might be missing a lot more than she thought.

Surely there were signs Kanji had something of a crush on her. Even she had noticed that. But Kuma's diction implied that it was...quite pronounced, for lack of a better observation. Now each tick in his body language stood out dramatically, and, in retrospect, there were past cues that were about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

"Where is the bear?"

Mitsuru's voice yanked her back. She realized she had been fiddling with the brim of her cap, and that her own cheeks felt quite hot. _This is stupid._ She turned slightly and pulled the cap lower over her face, realized as she did it that was an even more telling gesture, and tried to pretend she was just re-adjusting it.

"I don't know," said Yosuke. "He must have gone back into the TV or something. He just said he'd be right back a while ago and he hasn't shown back up. Good riddance."

"Yosuke-kun!" Yukiko snapped.

"What? It's his damn fault we're in this mess. That's why you guys showed up, right?"

_Well, of course, it makes sense he'd feel a kinship. We've both struggled with being gender-nonconforming in a unforgiving world. Sometimes that close a connection masquerades as romantic interest._

"Shirogane."

_We do care about each other. We've been through a lot together, as part of the group, after all. Adolescent hormones and inexperience make it hard to differentiate between a deep, platonic bond, and romantic love._

_Besides, I'm in love with Yu-sempai. _

"Shirogane!"

Naoto started. Everybody was staring at her. She flushed hotter, automatically fiddled with her cap and pulled it lower (though she knew it was a huge tell, it was too uncomfortable _not_ to), and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. Mitsuru sighed and faced the group again.

"Right. I had a feeling that would happen. We've already put operatives in place to intercept him should he go there."

"Operatives?" said Chie.

"One of our agents already spoke to Narukami this morning. I've sent him in with Yamagishi and Labrys. Yamagishi has tracking abilities like Kujikawa, but stronger."

"Well, if anybody could get Kuma to come back, it would be him," said Yosuke.

"You made Labrys-chan go back into the TV world?"

Mitsuru turned to Chie, who was standing with her hands on her hips. Yukiko had turned and was glaring. Yosuke made a small noise.

"Satonaka, what the hell? Sit down!"

"After all she's been through in there? You just threw her right back in, so soon after all that happened? Did you not think about how that would make her feel?"

"Labrys chose to go back."

"Huh?"

"During the briefing, today, she volunteered to go back. She wanted to go. She was the first one to predict-rightly-that it was where he would go."

They were silent for a while. Finally, Naoto cleared her throat.

"You said something about a scholarship."

"Oh, yes." Mitsuru opened her eyes. "You remember Tatsumi Port Island, don't you?"


	3. The bear and the pendulum

"He's that way." Fuuka pointed from within Juno's globe. "Of course. He has to be the one creating these distortions.

Yu sighed. Of course. He's right in the heart of it. That would of course be how it would go. Labrys started walking toward the convergence. A twisted, checkered strip of a path appeared under her feet, lighting up, like piano tones. She had been silent since they had entered the TV world, charging ahead defiantly with shoulders back-defiant of what, exactly, Yu did not know, but it was exaggerated confidence

"You comin'?"

Labrys had stopped. Yu pushed his now-useless glasses up and refreshed his grip on his sword. Juno faded, and Fuuka walked next to his elbow.

The path continued forming as Labrys walked. Staring at her shoulders, she seemed to be walking straight ahead, and the space rotating around her, warping the path, but when he looked away, he jolted from vertigo, reeled, and almost passed out from his blood dropping into his legs. Fuuka caught him as he stumbled.

"Are you all right?"

He waved her off and straightened. His ankles gave a little as he started walking, but he exhaled hard and kept his eyes on Labrys's back. Fuuka moved a half step in front of him and looked at him with concern. In the brief second he looked over at her, the back of his skull dropped out again, and he had to stop and steady. Fuuka frowned.

"Narukami-san?"

"I'm fine," he gasped, automatically. "How are you not getting dizzy?"

"Juno is keeping me oriented."

They started walking again. Yu swallowed and exhaled, slowly.

"Labrys? What about her?"

"I don't know." Fuuka touched her temple and stared at Labrys. "It seems like she's actually creating some of this twisted space herself. Maybe that's why she's not stumbling."

Yu nodded. Time collapsed on itself, collected in the cracks of Yu's skull and resonated with the vortex of black-shot clotting blood. The light finally started growing closer. Yu was sure it had been fingertip-sized a few minutes ago. The vortex spun around them, at this closeness seeming like some sort of rotting flesh, visceral and severed. Labrys stepped over the threshold into the light, which flared as she entered. Yu had to cover his eyes with his forearm.

The sky was close, now, compressed and low-ceilinged such that proportions were distorted grotesque. This node was an abandoned amusement park, a forest of rusted and collapsed rides stark black and spindly scraping a red sky. He took a step forward, crushing rusted coils of razor wire. The nearest contraption was covered in chipped primary-colored paint. The base of the large handle off one side was painted a whimsical spiral, black and white behind a red handle. It cranked a network of gears in the center of the bed, currently standing upright, and Yu realized the bed was split and hinged in the center to allow vertical expansion. Ah, yes, there were the manacles in each of the four corners, rust-jagged and splashed with bright blood.

Fuuka gasped, and Yu motioned for her to get behind him. He steadied himself and gripped his sword with both hands. Labrys was still marching forward; facing straight ahead.

"Labrys-chan!" Fuuka's voice squeaked. "Get back here!"

"Come on."

Yu shook out his shoulders, took a deep breath, and started walking. Fuuka padded behind him; when he glanced back, she was drawn into herself, wincing at every contraption they passed and jumping every time he stepped on a twig or more rusted wire. The light had a sunset cast, though there was no visible sun, orange and gold up dead grass stalks persisting through the dirt. He saw blood coagulated on a rusted thresher blade, connected to something that looked like a mantis hunched over a manacled bed, and tasted copper against the roof of his mouth, in the back of his throat.

Healing. He itched between his shoulderblades to reach out and heal, take away any miasma of death and rot left on the torture devices. A presence superimposed over his body, rooted in his chest. From the pool of his subconscious he had formed a Persona harboring deep healing powers, but able to defend and fight. The name formed on his tongue.

_Ishtar. Are you there?_

He made a small adjustment in the back of his head to bring out the aspects of himself that were matronly, powerful, but unfazed by the surroundings. The role he would play settled into the bones of his back, like a cloak, and he felt the ghost of horns curling out of his crown. Ishtar was there, wired through the back of his neck and into his consciousness. He had become hybrid.

Goddesses do not hunch about. He straightened his back and dropped his sword to his side, clenched the other fist, and brought his head up. The contraptions held far less horror, now. This was merciful compared to tortures the Babylonians had devised, and rather uncreative.

Fuuka scurried mouse-like behind him as he lengthened his strides over broken ground. The distances warped as they were, Labrys not far ahead was a stark shadow against red; she and her axe merged with the split bones of the abandoned carnival scraping at the sky. They passed a rotting shooting gallery where the dented tin targets were various figures of Kuma, gleeful, contented, coy, all grotesquely happy and scratched. Disemboweled, beheaded, slashed Kuma dolls hung from the rafters on nooses, blooming white stuffing for guts and viscera.

Through the bones of his ears, up from the base of his neck, he started to hear a calliope-maybe an accordion-playing a waltz, a prototypical, lurching carnival melody that brought to mind the grotesque cheer of a clown, and the vertigo of spinning rides, of crowds and burned sugar and heat and dust. They were climbing through the lateral spokes of a fallen Ferris wheel when Labrys stopped. Yu instinctively halted and held his arm out to stop Fuuka.

She stared for a long time with her axe blade resting on the dirt, a black Catherine wheel shadow. Yu finally padded forward and crested a rise in the dirt path to stand next to her.

Towering above the black skeletons of broken-down rides, rusted metal bones weakly bound to a support at the peak, was a boat. One of those pirate ship rides? No-at its zenith, the pendulum shined around the razor edge of a semi-circular blade. It dropped, hard, down to the center and slowly climbed to the opposite side, seemed to suspend for a moment, and dropped back down. The rusted scaffolding creaked and settled.

A set of gears mounted at the peak lurched, and the pivot dropped, hard, and stopped a few meters from where it had been previously. He felt the screech in the roots of his teeth. The pendulum did not stop swinging.

"The blade is newer than everything else." Fuuka was barely audible behind her crooked finger. "Look, everything else is rusted and falling apart."

He had noticed that, just as she had started speaking. The blade was clean, the only clean, new fixture in the park. Labrys wordlessly shouldered her axe and started walking down the slope. Fuuka and Yu followed her.

It was considerably further away-and bigger-than it had seemed. The dust they disturbed lingered behind them for miles. More rides retrofitted to become torture devices were along the path, but the perspective was off-the distance one walked to reach them in no way matched with how big they were, and how far off they seemed. Only the pendulum kept its perspective, growing commensurably bigger as they neared, until they stopped at a concrete base twice as high as Yu's head. The creak of settling and grinding rust was maddening here, and the blade cut the air in a ferocious rush that knocked them over the first time it had passed, before they grabbed on to the stair rail. The stairs went up the base and stopped at a platform Yu crested as the machine lurched again, screeching high enough Yu almost fell to his knees to clasp his head, and the pendulum dropped another few meters. He coughed from the shower of old dust and rust particles that dropped when the scaffolding shifted.

He groaned and rubbed between his eyes.

_Oh, for fuck's sake._

Kuma was lashed supine to a dais at the center of the structure, such that the blade's path cut across his stomach. At its lowest point it was a few meters away from slicing him open. Fuuka gasped and instinctively stepped back, then was nudged out of the way by Labrys, who stepped onto the edge of the platform. Her face was unreadable.

"Fuuka-san," she said. "I sense Shadow activity around here. Please scan the area while I look around."

Fuuka nodded, sucking on her teeth, and as she closed her eyes Juno's snowglobe-gown encased her. She was utterly out of place, seemingly pasted on, as Juno's cool blue tones clashed with the rust-and-blood color cast over everything.

Labrys finally stopped at the dais, looking down at Kuma. Yu yelled and jumped forward and Fuuka screamed as the boat-sized blade zoomed over her shoulder and the wind caught at her hair.

"Labrys, get away from that!"

He was sure she could hear him, but she did not respond. Yu adjusted his grip on his sword and looked around for any traps.

"There are shadows around here, but they're all connected to Kuma-san somehow," said Fuuka. "It's like... they came from him, or something. It's strange. It's like he's attacking himself."

"He is."

A circle of black, boiling wounds in the concrete bubbled up around Labrys and Kuma, and Yu shifted his weight onto his back foot and raised his sword as hooded inquisitioners coalesced from the shadows. They were all wielding various handheld torture devices-lashes, Catherine wheels the size of shields, flaying knives, some other complicated devices the use of which was not immediately apparent, but they had spikes on them, usually. They all slid toward Labrys.

"They're weak to electricity!"

"I figured. Ishtar!"

Yu summoned a Lovers card that hovered over his hand, smoldering in blue fire, and clenched his fist. It shattered, and Ishtar hovered before him. He sensed the ring of shadows as magnets, anchored their movement in his mind, and pulled lightning from the sky. They sizzled, shocked by bolts that struck straight down from the ether, and disintegrated. Yu ran forward and skidded to a stop and turned, as the Shadows started re-forming from the same points. Ishtar shocked them before they could pull themselves into the plane.

"Kuma!"

Yu stopped by the dais. Kuma looked at him, upside down, forlorn. His fur was ragged and singed, torn.

"Sensei..."

The pendulum lurched, screeched, and dropped down another few meters. Yu jumped out of its way and rolled on his shoulder as it sliced through where his chest had been. It was now centimeters from Kuma's stomach. Kuma smiled sadly. He looked too exhausted to cry.

"Sensei, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have come back in here looking for me."

Yu pulled himself up and winced as the blade dropped again. The Shadows were re-forming, and Labrys was facing them, brandishing her axe.

"You talk some sense into 'im! I'll take care of this!" She lowered her visor over her eyes and refreshed her grip. "Ariadne!"

Ariadne emerged and immediately gathered the closest few shadows in her thread, snarled them together, and hurled them at the others. The blade dropped over Labrys' shoulder, and Fuuka screamed again as it clipped her sailor collar and sliced a few ice-blue hairs.

"Labrys-san!"

"I know where the damned blade is. I'm a freakin' robot, ain't I?"

She pushed off and spun her axe into the closest knot of inquisitioners, slicing through them like paper, and caught another approaching knot with the momentum from her initial swing. She certainly seemed to have this under control. Yu turned back to Kuma and struck the manacle holding his paw; his sword bounced off in a shower of sparks. He growled, tried to strike again, lower, where the chain met the cuff, to the same effect.

"Kuma, for God's sake! Can't you stop torturing yourself?"

"I'm sorry, Sensei. I really don't belong in the outside world at all, do I?"

"This isn't the time for that!"

"I've really messed up everybody's lives, haven't I?"

Yu huffed and drew Ishtar back. "Garuda!"

He braced himself as Garuda launched up with a massive downdraft, and pushed against the top of the pendulum. The bolts meters deep strained against the concrete foundation, but the structure only creaked, twisted at rusted points. Yu grunted and shifted his stance, planting, and pushed forward harder. His shoulders and back knotted, but he kept pushing. His wings were taut, strained, as they were rooted in his shoulderblades; it took considerable effort to stay aloft. The rusted metal cut into his hands. The structure shifted, squeaked, sending down a shower of dirt and rust.

" 'ey! What the hell're you doin'?"

Yu ignored Labrys and refreshed his grip. The bob lurched, rattling about its pivot, and grazed Kuma's face. He keened and strained against his bonds to look at Yu.

"Sensei, stop! You'll get hurt too!"

Labrys sliced through the final shadow and ran to the dais. She threw herself over Kuma and sheathed her axe so that the flat shielded her head. Ariadne flew to the top of the scaffold and planted her hands alongside Garuda's, straining. The structure lurched.

"Labby-chan..."

"Shut up!" Labrys held up her arm to deflect a falling scrap of iron. "This is your fault!"

"I know, Kuma-"

"No! Not that! Your self-indulgent beatin' yourself up and makin' us come get you! You think you're the only person who's made a huge mistake and hurt people?" Labrys was silent for a while. Yu's foot almost slipped, but he re-balanced and grit his teeth. "Sometimes you gotta forgive yourself, and let people hate you for a while, rather'n beat yourself up, and have people gettin' hurt for trying to save you. You're just so afraid people'r gonna hate you! This isn't how a knight acts! A knight would go an' fix what he did, you know, make it right. And face the people he hurt."

Energy diffused through Garuda, down through his exhausted muscles, and re-set them. Out of the corner of his eye Yu saw Juno glowing and holding her hands out, casting healing energy up through the iron. The energy split and ran over his body, and Labrys's, and he pushed harder. The tower was wobbling, tearing itself from its roots. It should come down soon, just-

The gears in the pivot engine started cranking, and the pivot slid down the center support beams, like an elevator, with a hideous screech. Garuda and Ariadne gave one last shove, and the structure rose on its two opposite supports, the other two ripped from the concrete. The pendulum dropped, its momentum carrying it in its arc to swing outside the falling structure, the blade scraping Labrys's axe and sending up sparks, and finally fell, hard, with the rest of the structure. Yu dropped his connection with Garuda and turned, but it was too late, and-

Kamui burst forth and shoved the side of his missile into the flat of the blade, was knocked back like debris, and the blade fell a few inches from its original target. It grazed Labrys's arm and lodged deep in the concrete edge-first along her and Kuma's flanks. The tower, momentarily held diagonal by the blade, fell completely, and tugged the pendulum with it, wrenching the blade out of the concrete and dragging it sparking on its edge for several meters until everything finally stopped. The blade dropped on its side and shattered the concrete support lengthwise.

Dust burned his throat. He coughed, shielded his eyes against the sunlight diffusing through the cloud. Fuuka ran up, coughing. Labrys had pushed herself up onto her arms and was looking around, Kuma still pinned beneath her. She stood and tugged the base of her axe; it folded back into compact wings.

"Labby-chan, I'm still afraid something's gonna fall on me. Can you-"

"Shut up!"

The fist of her chain arm smashed into the concrete by Kuma's head; Kuma keened and closed his eyes, struggling against his chains. She re-drew the chain and the forearm snapped back onto her elbow.

"I'm sorry, Labby-chan! I was just joking."

"No, y'weren't. How selfish can you get? It's like you want to act like you did something worse than you did so people feel like they have to tell yeh you didn't do something that bad, instead of confronting what you did!"

"That's not..."

"Labrys."

Yu gently pushed Labrys aside. She allowed him to do that; he couldn't budge her if she didn't want to move. Kuma was starting to cry again.

"Sensei, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt anybody! I'm really really really really-"

"I know, I know." Yu placed his hand on the top of Kuma's head. "I know you would never hurt anybody intentionally."

"I didn't know we couldn't talk about all the Persona and Shadow stuff. I still don't. I swear. Hey, Sensei, why can't we tell other people about all this?"

Yu had no answer. Finally, he licked his lips and swallowed.

"I don't know. Maybe it's because people try to take advantage of those with power. But I do know that you need to calm down. I think you're the only one who can undo these chains."

"D'you think that'll make him feel better?"

Labrys fell to her knees. She was sniffing as though she also was going to start crying, for whatever limited definition of crying she could do. Yu sighed and forced himself not to rub his forehead.

"Labrys..."

"Labby-chan! Please don't start crying too. I can't bear it." He was sniffing harder. "I'm sorry I hurt you so bad."

Labrys shook her head fiercely. "That ain't it!"

Fuuka knelt and placed her hand on Labrys's heaving shoulder. Yu sighed and knelt down to Kuma's level. The dust was clearing; the sun was glaring hotter.

"You can't keep beatin' yourself up for somethin' you did when you didn't really mean to do any wrong. Didn't you say that to me when I ended up hurtin' everybody? The only thing you can do is try to fix things best you can. That's what a real knight would do."

"Labby-chan..."

Kuma stared at her for a long time. Finally, he closed his eyes, and his manacles started to glow. The glow spread down the chains, down the rivets and flooded across the concrete support, up the fallen scaffolding. He felt the energy diffuse far down, into the bolts. The light intensified-Yu covered his eyes-and burst, raining down soft firefly-motes.

They were standing in an open field, now, of gently rolling hills and patches of wildflowers. The air was clean. Kuma opened his eyes and sat up, blinked, shook his head vigorously, and stood, stiffly, watching the motes drift down. They all were. Yu automatically held out a palm to try to catch one; they dissolved as soon as they touched skin, leaving a tingling patch. Fuuka caught one and giggled quietly, covered her mouth with her other hand.

"Labby-chan!"

Kuma ran to Labrys and tackled her legs in a massive hug. Labrys knelt down and hugged him properly. She was still sniffling.

"I promise it's gonna be okay, ya hear? I promise."

Her voice was quiet; Yu heard it in his head. Kuma looked behind him. "Sensei, pretty lady, come on! It's a bear hug!"

Yu smiled and scratched the top of his head, and he turned under his palm to face Fuuka. "Kuma, this is Yamagishi Fuuka-san. She helped us find you. She's a Persona user too."

"Ooooh, from the Shadow Operatives?" His eyes were wide. "There are so many hot babes! I really should join that."

Fuuka looked taken aback. Yu shrugged. "He really doesn't have a filter between his brain and his mouth."

She waved her hand and smiled a little. "I guessed." She offered her hand. "It's good to meet you, Kuma-san."

She took his tiny paw in her palm, and shook his stubby arm. Kuma was beaming, eyes closed, and made a small happy gurgling noise.

"Fuu-chan! I'm gonna call you Fuu-chan!"

Fuuka blined. "Fuu-chan...?"

"He's also quite familiar," said Yu. "Instantly."

Fuuka giggled again behind her hand. "Well, he's adorable."

Kuma made another contented noise. Yu rested his palm on the top of his head again.

"Can you get us back to Yosuke's TV?"

Kuma's grin quailed a little, and he opened his eyes. "I, uh, really don't want... uh..."

"Kirijo-san told me she would meet us there."

"Mitsu-chan?" Kuma's face lit up for a second, then immediately fell, and he slunk back a little. "Is she mad? She's scary, Sensei. I really don't want her to be mad."

"Let 'em be mad," said Labrys. "They'll get over it. Because they care about you."

"Kuma really doesn't like it when people are mad at him," said Kuma.

"A knight does the right thing even if it makes him uncomfortable," said Yu.

Kuma thought for a moment, then straightened his shoulders and puffed his chest out, rather exaggeratedly. He started walking.

"Right! I'll show you the way! Back to Yosuke-kun's house!"

Fuuka leaned in to whisper in Yu's ear. "Is he... squeaking?"

"Yes. He does that. Come on."

"We originally wanted to wait a while for this, or at least until you had tried to make a move yourselves looking for the hijacker, but our hand has been forced."

"What-" Yosuke laughed nervously. "What are you-talking about? We weren't-"

"Don't." Mitsuru arched her eyebrows. "Did you honestly think we thought you would stand back and let us take care of things?"

"Uh..."

"I can see you all will get involved regardless of what we do to protect you. But we've talked a little, and I think I've forgotten how mature and able to handle things we were when we were your age. I think when you reach a certain age, you don't change as much over time, but you're used to that rate of change from being a child, and you falsely attribute that regression to people and assume they must not be nearly as mature as you were."

"...what?" said Kanji.

The door slid open, and Yosuke's mother appeared to refresh their teapot and other general seeing-to adjustments. She was unusually chipper. Chie was still staring at the door when she closed it behind her. _Why on earth is she so happy all of a sudden?_

Yukiko poured her more tea out of the corner of her eye, and she nodded thanks. Kirijo-san was seated in perfect _seiza_ at the end of the table. Chie had not seen her adjust at all. She poured tea with ceremonial grace, but handed back cups informally. When Mitsuru did it, the transition didn't seem jarring.

"I'll get to the point." Mitsuru took a long drink of her tea, held the cup under her nose for a moment, and set it back on its saucer. "We want you to join the Shadow Operatives."

The table was silent for a moment. Chie looked at Yukiko, who seemed mildly surprised-much as she was. This wasn't unexpected. Kanji and Yosuke looked shocked. Naoto looked bored. Mitsuru took another long drink of her tea.

"This probably isn't much a shock to you, even if you weren't expecting it so soon. This, however, might be. We want to keep everybody close. We can offer you security and shield you from some of the attention you attracted on that lovely website. Kujikawa Rise would benefit most from this, but we still want to consolidate Persona-users. We want you all to transfer to Gekkoukan High School on Tatsumi Port Island."

Silence. Chie automatically looked at Yukiko, who looked as shocked as she felt. Naoto seemed quite pleased with herself. Yosuke's mouth was hanging open. Kanji finally cleared his throat.

"You mean, like... we'd have to move?"

"Yes, Tatsumi-kun, that's implied." She seemed amused. "We will take care of your accommodations. You will stay in the dormitory in which I resided as a student. We leave this weekend."

"_This_ weekend?" said Yukiko. "It's Friday."

"Yes, indeed."

"So, like... tomorrow?" said Chie.

"Or Sunday. I know you'll need time to get your affairs in order."

Now the shock was settling in. Yukiko automatically refilled Mitsuru's tea cup when she set it down, empty. Chie stared down at her fists.

"You're acting like we already agreed to go," she finally said. "You can't just assume that! We get to choose where we live!"

"Hm." Mitsuru smiled into her tea. "I concede, that is true. But you will come. I know you will."

"No, you don't!"

"That's a very arrogant assumption," said Yukiko. She was beginning to smolder. "You can't just plan our lives like that!"

"But I'm not wrong, am I?"

There was no response. Chie stared down at her white-knuckled fists. She was shaking. But Mitsuru was right. God damn it, she was right.

"That's..." Yosuke finally said. Mitsuru arched her eyebrows at him, and he mumbled something into his tea. "Well..."

"I have no intention of patronizing you. I apologize if that was the impression you received. However, I do remember your obvious emotional investment in this case, thinly-veiled though it was. And you did take the initiative in the murder case last year, so I assumed you would have the same attitude to this."

"What about Yu?"

"I already discussed this with Narukami-kun. He said he will come. We've made contact with Kujikawa-kun's representatives, but they're reluctant to let her go."

"What are you telling them?" Yukiko was refilling Mitsuru's cup. "That she's going to go fight demons for a while?"

"If anything good came of this public relations debacle, it has given us a more credible cover for requesting her transfer. We are contacting her as a government agency invested in her safety and privacy."

"How the hell are we going to get our parents to agree to this?" said Yosuke. "Don't they have to sign something, or something?"

"You leave that to us."

"I don't..." Kanji scratched the back of his neck. "...I'm not sure I can leave Ma alone on such short notice. She's got to run the shop all alone, since Dad died."

"I have obligations to the Amagi Inn."

"What obligations?" said Mitsuru. Yukiko blinked, taken aback.

"Well, you know. I'm training to be the next manager."

"But what function, specifically, can they not fulfill without you for a while?"

Yukiko huffed and looked down at the table, brows furrowed. "I... don't know. I just feel I should be there."

"Well, talk it over with your Inn. Our representatives must have already stopped by to speak with your parents. We can provide for your lost labor and pay the salary for help. For your mother as well, Tatsumi-kun."

"Yeah, but that's..." Kanji's hand had threaded up the back of his head. "Not the same, ya know?"

"Have you realized that if you stay here, the media will hound your families as an extension of hounding you?"

Everybody stared at Naoto. She had been watching the exchange silently with her hands in her pockets, leaning against the wall.

"We've become a liability at the moment. That was the original premise from which this was devised. It will be easier for everybody if we go for a while."

There was a distant noise, like small suction cups being pulled up repeatedly. It was growing closer. Mitsuru set her teacup down and refilled Kanji's cup.

"It seems the expedition group is back."

The door slid open as she set the teapot back on its burner. Yu was in front, wearing his new uniform. Labrys' axe-wings were visible behind him; a small thrill uncurled in her stomach upon seeing both of them. They stepped into the room, Kuma in bear-form trying to hide behind Yu. This was stupid because he was at least twice as wide as his shield, and noisy. Labrys grabbed his paw and pulled him out into the open. He stared at his feet, shuffled. _Squeak squeak_.

Everybody stared at Kuma for a few moments. He clasped his paws behind his back and kicked at the floor, still staring down. He glanced up, on the verge of tears, and glanced back down.

"Kuma-san." Mitsuru's voice was cordial. "I'm glad you could join us. Please, sit down."

He took a deep breath and stood up straight, puffing his chest out, and exhaled. He was holding his shoulders back as far as he could, staring above their heads.

"I acknowledge any punishment you want to put on me for not realizing people would be mean with knowing about you guys. I did not realize Mayonaka TV, or Personas, or Bear-sonas, or anything, was supposed to be secret. I'm sorry I ruined everything."

He pronounced every syllable deliberately, putting odd emphasis on some. Yu placed his hand on top of his head.

"He's been open with people about his origins since he arrived here. They just misinterpreted him, but I don't think he really understood that they did. It set a precedent."

"Wha-" Yosuke stuttered. "I've been telling you to knock that off since you got here!"

"I thought you meant that I was talking too much and making customers uncomfortable. That's what the other shift manager said."

"That too, but..."

Yosuke sighed and rubbed the back of his head. Finally, he said, "I'm glad you got back here all right."

"If I may ask, where _did_ you get those bathhouse photographs?"

Naoto glowered at him from under her cap. Kuma scratched the back of his head and looked away, pursing his lips. He shifted nervously.

"Oh, Nao-chan... hi."

"That isn't an answer."

"From... the bathhouse?"

"What do we need to do to get ready to leave?"

Everybody looked at Yu. He had seated himself at the opposite head of the table, forearm resting on his raised knee. Kuma was transparently relieved.

"The Kirijo Group will transport your personal effects to the dormitory. Bring what you need to fight. Uniforms will be provided when you arrive. Your rooms will be fully furnished and linens provided. You are excused from school tomorrow to pack. We will arrange for your school records to be transferred. Tatsumi Port Island is a more temperate climate than here, but it can still get rather cold in the winter, especially at night. Summer is a little more tolerable because of the ocean breeze."

Mitsuru looked around. Chie felt she should be asking questions, but none congealed immediately. Nobody said anything. Mitsuru stood.

"You will find moving boxes outside your homes tomorrow morning. They will be picked up Sunday morning."

_May 12, 2012 (Saturday)_

_Light rain / overcast_

Somebody rang the bell at the front of the store.

Kanji's stomach dropped, and he half-scrambled to his door, hesitated, and peeked down the stairs. Pulled back. No, if that was her, he couldn't look like he'd been waiting. But he couldn't look like he was avoiding her, either. That would be too obvious. He tried to pretend it was any other customer ringing the bell, and conceiving of how he would handle that, but his brain was fried.

"Oh, Naoto-kun."

That was Ma. Kanji took a deep breath and slid back into his room, hit a box with the back of his heel. He had to come out. She'd know that he'd heard the bell. He couldn't wait too long. Or look too eager. Was that looking too eager?

"Kanji-kun!"

"Yeah, all right."

He ran his fingers through his hair and went down the stairs. Naoto was staring ahead at his mom with her head tilted forward so her hair was over her eyes. She glanced at him. She was carrying a cloth shopping bag, hands clasped behind her back, and looked oddly hunched trying to stand up straight _and_ lower her head. She suddenly jerked her head up and stared at Kanji. Kanji clasped his hands behind his back so hard they shook and forced himself not to look away. He grinned, he hoped convincingly, but he felt like he was just barring his teeth.

"Hey."

His voice was lighter than he had anticipated. Naoto touched the brim of her hat and nodded. The smirk did not reach her eyes. The blood rushed from his head. Her eyes were distant. They were as distant as they had been when she had just joined the Investigation Team. Several months of slow unfurling had snapped back shut.

"I'll let you two talk."

He had forgotten Ma was there. She slipped past the shop curtain, and there they were, alone. Silent for a few moments. Kanji finally clicked his tongue.

"Do you, uh, want to come up and, uh, hang out, or something...?"

Naoto hesitated. "...sure."

He couldn't feel too embarrassed about the state of his room, given that he was trying to cram stuff into boxes at the last minute. He shoved stuff off his bed so she could sit down.

"Thank you for lending these to me."

"Oh, uh, no problem."

He took the small stack of manga Naoto handed him. She wadded up the bag she'd carried them in and twisted it a little, nervously. She stopped, smoothed the bag out, and folded it.

"Are you taking all of your books and stuff?"

"No. All that stuff's really heavy. Takes up a lot of space. I mean, if I was movin' somewhere permanently, I would, but for like a year or something, I don't know..."

Naoto nodded. He swallowed and turned to re-shelve the volumes, taking far longer than necessary to busy his hands.

"So, uh, what'd you think of these?"

"Hm." Naoto seemed to relax a little. "I certainly can see why _Ribon no Kishi_ was extremely influential for its time, but Tezuka's conception of gender is problematic. I could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was tongue-in-cheek, but I can't be sure. His readers might not get it, anyway, but people not understanding satire isn't a reason to dumb it down, is it?"

"Yeah. It's, uh... yeah, I know what you mean."

He didn't, and that made him feel worse.

"It's very gender essentialist. You know. It assumes the definition of "male" includes set traits, like bravery and dexterity and autonomy, and "female" is by definition flighty and sweet and weak. Or visa versa. Like courage is "male" and weakness is "female", ipso facto."

"Oh! Yeah, I know what you mean."

"It's very binary. Or modular."

"Binary, like... uh, you mean, you're either totally a guy or totally a girl, and there really isn't any in-between, that sort of thing?"

"Yes, exactly." She smiled a little, a genuine smile, and his stomach unknotted a little. "Sapphire's androgyny is conceptualized as possessing a male and female heart, and it's... how would you say it...there's no fusion there. Like, if you take away the 'male' parts, she is by definition female. You're still thinking entirely in terms of 'male' and 'female'. Traits can't be both. When she has her male heart taken away, as part of that, her courage and strength are taken. Because those are seen as "male". That sort of thing."

"Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. 's bullshit."

He did actually know what she meant. Some of the tension had melted away, but his nerves were still raw with nervous energy. He started shifting things about in a box even though they didn't need reorganizing.

"You all packed yet?"

Naoto huffed. "Not even remotely. But I already only have with me the bare essentials, so I don't have to sort through things and make decisions. I need to find a place to leave perishable food."

"Your family, like, okay with all this?"

"Yes. What about your mother?"

"I think she's happy I got selected for any special _anything_. I don't really know what Kirijo told her. Can't be that I'm a genius or any shit like that. It's really sudden, though, like, I think that's making her suspicious. But she's lettin' me go, so, you know, that's good. I've always been such a complete fuck-up and an embarrassment to her; must be nice to be proud of me for once."

"You are not a complete fuck-up and an embarrassment."

Kanji looked up. Naoto stared levelly back for a few moments, then lowered her head to cough.

"What are you going to do about your stock of dolls?"

"I dunno. I guess Ma can keep them up for sale, or something. I can ship more back. I'm bringin' all that crap, fabric and stuff."

Naoto nodded. They were silent for a while. Kanji's stomach reeled; the pit was connected to her, always aware of where she was. She finally stood and smoothed her navy jacket, tugged it straight around the gold buttons.

"I suppose I should continue packing."

Kanji nodded. That pit was rotting, ghosted over his tongue.

"Yeah. I, uh, guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

Naoto nodded and touched the brim of her hat, turned. Kanji turned back to the stacks of folded clothes he was putting in a box. She had not left. He looked back up; she was standing in the doorway, hands in pockets. The tension in her shoulders resonated in his stomach.

"Do you, uh..." She looked over her shoulder. She wasn't making eye contact. "...do you want to get lunch, or something?"

That pit split, unfurled and fluttered up as hope. Naoto scratched the back of her neck and looked down, away. Her cheeks flushed.

"I mean, you know, we won't be back here for a while. And um... we could go to Aiya. Or something."

He was trying to put words together. Naoto cleared her throat and stepped out of the doorway.

"Yeah, I guess I'll se-"

"Yes!"

Naoto stopped. Kanji stumbled to the door, almost tripping over a box, and stopped behind her. She turned and looked up. From here, he could smell cologne, something light from the sweat on the back of her neck that rolled across the surface of his tongue.

She smiled. It was a genuine smile. She closed her eyes when she smiled, often, but this one reached them anyway. His face was splitting. He was trying to not grin too much, but the end result was that he was grinning _and_ twitching.

"That sounds-that sounds great."

The alleyway seemed clear. Inoue beckoned leaning half-out the door, and Rise drew her hood up and followed. He had originally wanted an entire entourage to buffer, but Rise's makeup artist pointed out-correctly-that this would draw far too much attention. She had been applying base and shadow-tones to slightly change the shape of Rise's face. It was subtle, but in that naturality, striking. The artist had found a simple black wig. The prop department had some thin pads you could bind to your thighs, hips, waist, whatever, to make you look pudgier, and beneath old jeans and a loose hoodie this looked natural.

The alleyway had been secured, the door selected because it was invisible from the street. Inoue grabbed her hand and they walked against the wall toward the front of the building. He was dressed casually, too, clearly posing as a boyfriend, and had found a path that would have them merge into the crowd of people waiting at the front doors. There was a knot of employees along that flank that could hide their entry.

"Kujikawa Rise."

Inoue automatically pulled her behind him as he turned. A man was standing in the center of the alley with his hands in his pockets. Rise's stomach rolled. She had been staring at Inoue's back; she was sure before that she had seen no one in the alley. He started walking forward.

"Who the hell are you?" Inoue's hand hovered toward the radio holstered at his lower back. "How did you get in here?"

The man lowered his head slightly, and Rise felt a shock, something pass through her chest running along her bones and coming out her spine. It had come through Inoue. He had drawn his radio and was holding down the talk button, but there was no response. He glared at it and smacked it with the flat of his hand. The green light had gone out. The man kept walking forward, leisurely, and Inoue dropped the radio and moved in front of Rise.

"I just want an autograph."

The man stopped less than an arm's length away. Inoue had to crane his neck to look up at him. He was shaking, but he did not move. His hand twisted on Rise's wrist, and he shifted his weight in preparation to run.

Kanzeon reached up through her nerves and placed her hand on her shoulder. She seemed to be telling Rise to wait. The energy coming off this man was incredible.

"Wait."

Rise placed her hand on Inoue's shoulder. She gently pushed him aside and stepped up to the man, who seemed amused by this. The man's eyes were sharp, garnet. Every nerve in her body hummed; the energy was almost overwhelming. It pounded at the roots of her eyes. But Kanzeon kept telling her to hold.

The man reached into his blazer. Rise's stomach dropped out and Inoue yelled, grabbing her shoulders and shoving her out of the way, but the man withdrew a yellowed, tri-folded parchment. She nudged Inoue aside and took it. It was sealed in deep blue wax; the sigil was something she felt she should recognize; the knowledge came from some primordial space in her gut, but her head was not grasping it. It was a sun, divided down the middle-no, a face. The punches that were its eyes were hollow wells; she could not look away. The rim of one was rubbed, showing a splinter of lighter-blue wax.

"Open it," said the man.

Rise slid her finger under the seal, which separated cleanly. The paper crackled when she unfolded it. The text was immaculate calligraphic script.

_I, _, give my word that I will take full responsibility for my actions and decisions._

The man stared at her for a long time.

"Inoue." Rise did not take her eyes off the man's. "I need a pen."

"Rise-"

"Just do it."

Inoue scrambled through his inner pocket and brought out her clutch, which she often talked him into carrying for her. She fished out a pink, glittery pen stamped with strawberries and put the cap on the end. She stopped just as the tip touched the paper. The man's expression had not changed.

She started writing a fraction of a second before she consciously made her decision. In the space below the message she carefully wrote out "Kujikawa Rise" in bright pink script. As she lifted her pen from the paper, her name scrawled itself in the space left in the message, the same handwriting as the words around it.

The words lit up as a blinding-hot wire, and she fell out of reality.


	4. You are not alone

_May 14, 2012 (Monday)  
Overcast_

Chie smoothed down her skirt and adjusted her jacket, stood back from the mirror. The Gekkoukan uniform looked as good on her as it had in the garment bag she found on her bed. She smiled and twirled; the skirt was high-waisted, which gave it a pleasant weight. She was still debating whether or not she wanted to wear her windbreaker when Yukiko knocked on the door.

"I love the bow. It's so cute." said Chie.

"The whole thing is much cuter than our old uniforms. I was getting tired of wearing a sailor collar. Doesn't it make us look more mature?"

"Black is a good color for that. Well, it is a private school, so it makes sense the uniforms would be really nice. You look amazing, Yukiko. Black and red really suits you."

She really did look stunning. Yukiko blushed a little and smiled. "Are you going to wear your jacket?"

"I dunno. I was just thinking about that. What about your sweater?"

"I tried it. It looked really lumpy over the jacket. The material's stiffer than our old ones."

"Yeah. I guess it's kind of warm for that, anyway, huh?"

Yu was the only one down in the lobby. He was eating a breakfast bar and scratching a white Shiba inu behind the ear, the latter of whom had stretched out on the couch with his head on Yu's lap, and seemed quite pleased. This must be the dog Mitsuru had told them about last night-Koromaru? Something like that. She'd said he had his own door and came and went as he pleased, and that he was a very clean, well-behaved dog, so he shouldn't be any trouble. The dorm caretaker used to feed him; that was now their job. Oh, and, he is a Persona user.

Chie sat down next to Koromaru's rump, and he started thumping his tail against her leg. She scratched his hips, and he yawned, stretched, and looked up at her briefly before putting his head back on Yu's lap. Yukiko knelt down in front of the couch and scratched his belly. He turned slightly toward her, yawned, licked, and re-adjusted.

"He so cute! Look at those red eyes!"

Chie slipped her fingers under his collar, which was a bifurcated metal ring with hinged joints on either side of his jaw-her fingertip brushed the catch to remove it-and a large blue gem set into a metal port, under his ear. The rivets bolting the gem into its casing made it look like a submarine window.

Koromaru twisted his head to look at her apprehensively. Chie removed her fingers and patted the top of his head. Mitsuru had said that collar was an Evoker, so it would make sense he was protective of it.

"Is this the magical Persona-using dog?"

Yosuke leaned over Yukiko and scratched Koromaru under the chin. He tipped his head back into Yu's lap, smiled, and murfled.

"You're a cute boy, aren't you? Does he talk or anything?"

Yu crumpled his breakfast bar wrapper and tossed it at the trash can. It, of course, went in.

"Not in human language, no. Aigis can talk to him."

"Does he have complex thoughts?" said Yukiko. "I mean... he's a dog. How is he able to summon a Persona?"

Yu shrugged. "Aigis apparently had complex conversations with him. His Persona is a dog, too, so it makes sense he'd be able to empathize. Maybe there's some sort of doggie collective unconscious. I don't know." He scratched Koromaru behind the ear. "Maybe learning words and concepts heightened his consciousness. You know, like how you have to know words for things to understand them as concepts. George Orwell said something about that. You two look really nice, by the way."

Chie flushed a little and shifted. "You-uh-look really nice too, Narukami-kun."

That wasn't a lie. The Gekkoukan uniform looked as good as his Yasogami one had. Yukiko didn't say anything. Her eyes darkened for a moment as she looked away, but cleared before anybody but Chie would pick up on it.

"Hey, hey! What about me?"

"You look exactly like you always do, Hanamura-kun."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Yukiko giggled behind her hand. "What do you think it means?"

"Hey, no, seriously, what does that mean?" said Yosuke. Chie had started to laugh a little, too. "Hey!"

"Hi, doggie!"

Somebody small and blond barreled onto the couch and hugged Koromaru around the waist. Koro startled up and snapped as Kuma rubbed his face against his flank. Yosuke grabbed Kuma by the collar and pulled him back.

"Kuma! What the hell? You don't just jump on dogs like that!"

"Sorry!" Kuma seemed to be speaking directly to Koromaru, and paying no mind to Yosuke at all. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Kuma. It's nice to meet you!"

Kuma grabbed Koromaru's paw and shook it vigorously. Yosuke made a small sound, and Chie tensed, waiting for Koromaru to snap at Kuma again-as any dog would, and nobody would blame him-but Koromaru just blinked and tilted his head. His brows furrowed in an almost human expression of confusion.

"Oh, you really are a Persona user! That's beary cool! I'm a bear but I use a Persona too. Well, kind of a bear. I don't know any more. Not like, a bear like you're a dog. I mean, you come from the real world."

"You can talk to him?" That was Yu.

"Sensei, of course I can talk to him! He's talking right now!"

Kuma was wearing a Gekkoukan uniform, as well-though now the front was matted with white fur. Chie was trying to figure out why in hell Mitsuru would think it would be a good idea to send Kuma to school when he looked down at his jacket and jumped up.

"Eeeep!" He tried to brush the fur off. "It's not coming off!"

"That's static cling." Yu seemed amused. "I have a lint roller. Come upstairs with me for a bit."

They passed Naoto coming down the stairs, who looked after Kuma with an arched eyebrow. She was still dressed in a boy's uniform, though in retrospect Chie wasn't sure what she was expecting. Did she find that uniform in her room like the rest of them?

"Is it really a good idea to send Kuma-san to school?"

"No." Yosuke sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "You guys gotten breakfast yet? What's there to eat around here?"

The kitchenette was well-stocked, and after arguing with Yukiko over why she shouldn't help cook, despite wanting practice, Yosuke and Yu started frying eggs and bacon. Koromaru sniffed the air and kept looking toward the kitchen and wagging his tail, though Yu said he'd already had his breakfast. Kanji finally lurched down, and they were eating and playing with Koromaru when Labrys started yelling.

"All right, all right! Line up! It's time for uniform inspection!"

Everybody looked at her, but nobody moved. She was standing at the foot of the stairs in a uniform of her own, stern, arms crossed. She was wearing black stockings and gloves, and, somehow, her skirt obscured the flares of plastic bolting her thighs to her hips.

"You actually going to school, Labrys-chan?" said Chie.

"I said line up!"

"Dude, what the hell are you talking about?" said Yosuke. "Uniform inspection?"

"It's my job as student council president to ensure the dress code is enforced."

"But you're _not_ the student council president." Doubt caught at the back of Chie's tongue as soon as she said that. "Are you?"

"Not yet. Line up!"

Chie automatically looked at Yu. His face was blank, but after a few moments he smiled slightly and shrugged, standing up. Yosuke made a choking noise.

"You're... not seriously gonna...?"

"We might as well indulge the future student council president."

"Thank you, Narukami-kun!" Labrys said as he stood against the wall. "You're setting a good example for your peers. Outstanding. All right, rest of you, up!"

Chie glanced at Yukiko, who looked back, confused. Kuma bounded up and stood next to Yu, clasping his hands behind his back and straining to stand as straight as he could. He looked almost giddy.

"Yay! Uniform inspection!"

"Oh my God."

Yosuke sighed and pushed up off the floor, and the rest apprehensively followed to the wall. Labrys paced in front of them with her arms crossed, and nodded, satisfied, when they all were in place.

"Good, good. All right, let's see." She stopped at the center of the line and scanned. "...Narukami-kun, tuck your shirt in. Kuma-kun, I know that blonde hair is your natural hair color, so you're fine. Hanamura-kun, take those headphones off your neck."

"Wha-"

"Satonaka-kun, Amagi-kun, I see you've elected to wear your uniforms properly now. Thank you. The shorts aren't standard, but you can't see them beneath the skirt and you wear them in the name of modesty, so I'll let it slide."

It took Chie a moment to realize "wear your uniforms properly now" meant without a jacket, but Labrys had moved on before Chie could protest that she had not made that decision out of any consideration for dress code. She stopped in front of Kanji, who had already crossed his arms and braced for an argument.

"Tatsumi-kun, wear your jacket properly! And no piercings are allowed! And you have to dye your hair back its original color!"

"Shut up."

"Shirogane-kun!" She had already moved on to Naoto, who had also crossed her arms. "I'll let the hat slide, but you're wearin' the entirely wrong uniform!"

Naoto tapped her forearm. "...wrong uniform, meaning...?"

"You are a girl! That is a boy's uniform! Didn't you receive the correct uniform last night?"

"If by 'correct uniform', you mean a 'girls' uniform, then yes, I received that. And this one as well."

"Well, 's not dress code! You're a human female! I can clearly see that."

Naoto hugged herself tighter and turned slightly away. "Don't scan me!"

"Why won't y'wear the correct uniform?"

"I feel like wearing this one today. I'm more comfortable in it. It's more practical."

"That's sexist!"

"How is that sexist? _You're_ being sexist!

"If yer worried about people seein' up your skirt, you can wear shorts like Satonaka-kun."

"Hey!" Chie stepped out of the line. "Don't bring me into this! Let her wear what she wants."

"Yeah!" said Yukiko. Labrys was pressing her mouth into a line. "Why is it any of your business what she wears? She's not hurting anybody."

"Ain't you guys insulted by 'er?"

"Insulted?" said Chie. "Why would be we be _insulted_?"

"Look," said Naoto. "I feel like wearing _this_ uniform! I won't be restricted to a gender binary."

"Yeah, get off her ass, seriously," said Kanji. "It's a uniform, ain't it? She's even, like, wearing it all proper, and stuff."

"An' _you're_ not, so go upstairs and change!"

"Labrys."

Yu had slid up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder. She froze, blinked a few times, and looked down, mumbling.

"Would you walk with me to school?"

* * *

"Go ahead 'n do it."

Yu looked over at Labrys. She was still staring at the ground, her bangs covering her eyes. She was hunched up; through Izanagi-no-Okami he could feel the electric tension in her shoulders, potential energy tight in servos and capacitors.

"Go ahead and do what?"

"Lecture me. That's what you're gonna do, in'it?"

"No."

They were silent for a few minutes. The sun cut through the clouds. They moved out of the dappled shade of the tree-lined sidewalk into a soft industrial area, all glaring concrete and lawns and freshly-painted metal sheds.

"I'm surprised that you're going to school."

"Why?"

"Well, didn't you say you were going to devote your energy full time to the Shadow Ops until you found the person who hacked you?"

"Well, you guys're goin' to school here, now, right? And you're workin' on the same thing as me." She was silent for a few moments. "I think that's why Mitsuru-san said I should go to school. I mean, can't be that I'm useless, or in the way, can it?"

_Ah. There it is._

"Of course not. Mitsuru-san is wise. She wants to help you become a better, more understanding person."

"How the hell's that gonna help catch this bastard? I ain't here to fulfill myself or some crap like that. I wanna be useful."

Yu thought for a few moments. Labrys tensed harder, waiting.

"A Persona is strengthened by interpersonal bonds and self-awareness, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but..."

"There's no other way to learn those things but to experience them."

Labrys thought for a long time. She finally looked up, hands clasped behind her back, her bag bumping against the back of her calves. Her mind quieted; the tension, electrical potential between wires and nerves, dampened. Her heart settled in her chest; the insecurity became a subliminal hum at the fringes of her mind.

"So you really want to run for student council, huh?" said Yu.

"Yup! I've always wanted to."

"Why?"

"I dunno. It just seems like somethin' I really wanna do. I guess I'm overdoin' it, though. I don't know how I'm supposed to do any of this stuff, out in society, you know. The real world. But that's what student council presidents do on TV, and it's their job, in'it?"

"A wise leader doesn't boss people about over every tiny issue. You'll lose respect and devotion that way. You have to learn when to enforce the rules, and which ones."

"But that's stupid! If they're not enforced, why're there rules? Might 's well just not have rules. I mean, if you treat one rule like it don't matter, then people start thinkin' none of the rules matter. You have to change the rule or enforce it."

Yu shrugged. "This is just what I've observed. Pick your battles. And remember the _spirit _of the law is what's most important. Not the letter."

"Pick your battles..."

Labrys was silent through the strip of shopping arcade buffering Iwatodai Station from the industrial park. The station was packed, though, thankfully, the flow of traffic tended the opposite direction they were going, toward the mainland. Whatever vestigial memory she had of train stations she could derive from her soul-donor was scant, if anything. She stared up the escalator with a pained look of attempted memory, almost nostalgia, and for a moment seemed isolated in the crowd-Izanagi felt the node her memory had created-until Yu gently nudged the small of her back. She blinked and time started again, her eyes cleared, and she continued walking. She seemed to think everything was _cool_-buying refillable passes from the machine, the turnstiles, the platforms, the urban unification from standardized signs and symbols, all clean lines and postmodern fonts.

The train was loosely full, and they were able to find adjacent seats. Labrys stared out the window on her knees as the train shuttled through a dark port, then slid into the blinding morning light. The ocean reflected like metal.

Yu had been gazing out the window a few minutes when he felt Labrys's attention shift inward, collected to a coherent bundle, from its diffuse spread across the ocean. She kept staring at the ocean, but her brow furrowed, and her lips twitched as though she were trying to form words. Finally, she looked at him and frowned.

"Don't stare at me like that. It's creepy."

"Sorry. I just got the feeling you wanted to say something."

Labrys blinked and drew back slightly.

"You got some kind of weird sixth sense thing going on or somethin'?"

"Not really. I'm just good at reading people."

Labrys turned back toward the window, though her attention was still fixed on him. She stubbornly stared at some fixed point on the horizon.

"Shirogane-kun... refuses to wear dresses, don't she? She always wears men's clothes, she uses 'boku' all the time..."

Yu shrugged. Labrys kept talking.

"It's not that she wears men's clothes that pisses me off. It's that she _refuses_ to wear women's clothes. It's like she thinks she too _good_ to be a girl. Like she's too smart or strong or cool or whatever. I don't know. She treats wearin' skirts like some kind of _defeat_. Why do people think bein' a girl or bein' girly is something that makes you _weaker_?"

"It's more complicated than that."

"So you admit that's _some_ of it?"

"That is only a small part of it. Gender is immensely complicated."

"Didn't she start crossdressing because people didn't respect her as a girl or somethin' like that?"

"I think that's correct."

"Didn't she accept she was a girl, an' all that? That's what her Shadow was, right?"

"Whatever gender she decides she is, that doesn't mean she has to act as society's definition of anything. I think she wants to be free of any arbitrary gender rules. "

"Seems like she's doin' it to make a point."

"Maybe."

They were silent for a few moments. Yu finally said, "I think you two are closer in agreeing about this than you think. You're just coming at it from opposite sides."

* * *

Gekkoukan High had a store that sold wrapped breads and sandwiches. Yu and Yosuke had been off the queue staring up at the menu for a few minutes when they heard Kuma yelling.

"Hel-LO, fellow schoolmates!"

He jumped between them and braced his arms on their shoulders. Yosuke sputtered and peeled his arm off.

"Kuma! God, shut up! You sound weird."

"I'm here to purchase my scho-ool lunch like the rest of my peers!"

Yu gently shrugged Kuma's arm off without looking away from the menu. This wasn't the first time today Kuma had done this. For reasons absolutely beyond Yu, Kuma had been assigned the same third year class. Though, the more he thought about it-and the more he realized he was the one smoothing over Kuma's general awkwardness-he thought it might be a way of keeping Kuma within watch. So that made him the bear's keeper.

In retrospect, this was a necessity.

Yu and Kuma had been introduced to their homeroom class in the commensurate fashion, as special scholarship transfer students, and though it was a considerably more pleasant experience than being dressed down by Morooka, it had still put him on edge. He had established early they were old friends, as Kuma wasn't likely to be cool around him. The teacher had already been perplexed by the name on the roll sheet-Kumada Kuma-with the surname written in Kanji, and the given name in Katakana. Yu said his parents were quite eccentric, and, as Kuma himself was already evidently 'quite eccentric', this required little suspension of belief.

His introduction, though...

"Hi!" Kuma had stood at the front of the class, bouncing on his toes. "I'm Kuma! I'm a regular ordinary everyday high school student from Yasoinaba. I'm SO happy to be here! I've never lived in a big city before! I'm really excited to learn with you guys and go on field trips and eat lunch on the roof like a normal high school student! I love shopping, and hanging out with my other normal high school student friends, and I really lo-ove the ladies! Oh, by the way, I'm single, baby, so don't be shy about approaching me."

He had winked and blown a kiss off two fingers. Yu wasn't sure if this was more amusing or painful to watch, but after Kuma had listed off his favorite colors, songs, store ("Junes!"), foods, topsicle flavor, and season ("Summer! Beach and babes and summer romance!"), the teacher had cut him off. Two desks had been moved in to accommodate them, lined vertically along the inner wall, and Yu had quickly said he was perfectly fine with sitting with somebody he already knew, and that he really didn't think it would hinder his integration into the student body. So he had Kuma directly in front of him, which at least made keeping an eye on him easy. Kuma was a tightly wound mass of nervous, giddy energy, which radiated off him and tightened Yu's shoulders, and he was bouncingly slightly in his seat all through homeroom. He was trying hard to focus in class; he had his forearms on the desk, clasping a pen and staring at the teacher intently, and nodding furiously whenever the teacher made a point. Yu had glimpsed his notes before lunch; they were an illegible mess, and what he could read was, if not vague, wrong.

How the hell he was going to pass Kuma off as a scholarship student, he had no idea, but bless his heart, he was trying.

In the few minutes they had separated after class, Yu had found Yosuke, and Kuma had found both of them. And now Kuma was mesmerized by the menu. Several of the students in line were staring at him, something to which Yu had resigned a while ago. Kuma was odd. Fine. If he didn't seem bothered by this, at least the less gossipy students wouldn't suspect anything.

"I can't decide what I want," said Kuma.

"Eh, whatever. I'll just go with the cutlet sandwich and the melon bread."

Yosuke moved to the back of the line. While Yu's indecision came from indifference, Kuma's was still of overwhelmed exuberance. His brow was furrowed; Yu could feel his brain was cranking. He imagined it was throwing up sparks.

"You know, you'll have plenty of time to try everything this year. Just make a decision."

"I know! I'll just get everything!"

"What?" said Yosuke. Kuma trotted over to join him at the back of the line. "You're just going to make yourself sick again!"

Yu sighed and followed him.

"Why don't we split everything, so we can each taste some of it."

"Ooh, wow! Sensei, you're so smart!"

His phone beeped. Yu pulled it out of his back pocket and flipped it open with his thumb. Kanji's phone strap was getting a little worn. His stomach mellowed when he saw it was from Rise.

_hey bb! i just got to the dorm wanna meet up ltr? theres that clamshell inn you remember from last time anyway its a lil more private if you know what I mean LOL -_o. youll have to get some supplies tho. and theres smthing i rly want to talk to you about so meet me there after school try not to get to destracted till then -_o_

"Have I told you lately how much I hate you?"

Yosuke was leaning in to read. Kuma was craning his neck to look.

"Hey, hey, Sensei," he said in a loud whisper. "What's supplies?"

Yu was already thumbing out an affirmative response. He snapped the phone shut and put it back in his pocket.

"Kuma, God damn it, you don't ask that kind of stuff!" said Yosuke.

"I'll talk to you about it later," said Yu. "Keep your voice down."

This was dead opposite of what he wanted to do, but he had to at least meet Kuma halfway to fulfill his request that he not mention, insinuate, hint, allude to, or in any way indicate to the other students that Yu was involved with Rise. If the price for that was giving awkward sex ed lessons... well, Kuma should learn that stuff anyway, right? At least, Yu speculated he might have the need.

At least the awkwardness killed any chance he had of getting an erection, here, in the middle of school, on his first day, and he resolved not to think about Rise until he got out of school. That resolve got him about five minutes into math class. They hadn't had a chance to sleep together since he had gotten back to Inaba for Golden Week, and that made it, what, at least a month since he had sex? Nobody had said a long-distance relationship would be easy, and in addition to just missing her like hell, his adolescent libido was not tolerating it well. So he tried to keep things at most at half-mast and was imagining holding her in his lap, with her leaning back onto his chest and him playing with her breasts-he could feel her nipple against his palm and her flanks against his inner arms-when they were finally released for the day. He took a few minutes to shuffle his notes in some weak guise of organization while he waited for his erection to calm down, but was still wired, as he wanted to get out of the building _immediately_, without anybody stopping him to talk or ask if he wanted to do something. He was half-jogging by the time he got to the entrance, and managed to pull on his outdoor shoes and leave before anybody could find him. Yosuke and Kuma would blab if anybody asked where he was, anyway. Hopefully they would have the sense to leave him alone unless there was a real emergency.

_Please, God, don't let there be a real emergency._

* * *

It was a cliché in romance novels that silk sheets feel wonderful against bare skin, but it was a true cliché. Rise was lying on her side, head on her upper arm, gazing at the Velvet Room key in her palm. Yu had dozed off behind her, but, unlike other guys, he had made sure she was taken care of first. He always made sure she was _very well_ taken care of. So every nerve on the surface of her skin was fuzzy, hypersensitive and shot, which made the sheets feel especially luxuriant, and she was clenching her legs to stimulate her hypersensitive clit and swollen lips. This was the pleasant aftermath being fucked, hard, glittery and only sore at the vaginal rim, not aching and pounded and just generally hypersensitive in a painful way. That was the other amazing thing about Yu-no matter how desperate he was getting, he always made sure she was relaxed and soaked, such that she was usually the one begging him to just stick it in already, even if his cock was leaking and straining violent red by that point.

Post-orgasmic euphoria ghosted the surface of her mind, and she was drifting in and out of consciousness-into black, snap-voids, which seemed to consume her for long periods but was actually only minutes-when she felt Yu shift and clench her back to his chest. His skin was hot against her shoulders and her lower back, where the slight paunch on his abdomen fit perfectly, and he slid his arm under hers and fondled her breasts. She giggled and nudged his hand away when he was running the blade of his forefinger on her areola, catching the underside of the nipple. It was way too sensitive, almost itchy.

"Why are guys so obsessed with boobs, anyway?"

Yu shrugged against her back. "They're fun. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

She realized he was talking about the key. She clenched the blade between forefinger and thumb so she could stare at the design on the head. She had originally indented to talk to him about this first-really she had-but when he had found her room, she had crushed him into the wall and was kissing him before he had even dropped his bag. Things proceeded predictably from there.

"You have one too, don't you? That's why you can summon all those Personas."

His fingers ghosted over the back of her hand holding the key. "Yeah. How did you get this?"

She told him about the man in the alley, the contract, and being absorbed into another dimension, where she met Philemon. He seemed familiar with all the collective unconscious and destruction of ego stuff, at least. She was still trying to grasp it. She felt at the limits of her mind, vague and far from clarity, that she understood what Philemon had been talking about, but when she thought about what he had said, in the forefront of her mind, she felt insecure about her intuition.

"He said I had a lot of potential to become a Wild Card. Like, since I'm an actress, I'm good at putting myself in other people's shoes. I think that's kind of like what he was saying. What did he say to you?"

"I never met Philemon. I just met Igor's group. They're the Velvet Room attendants. I think that is where this key allows you to go. It looks just like mine. I get the same... feeling from it, too."

"Feeling? Like what?"

"It's hard to explain. I sort of feel like I'm reaching for a doorknob when I reach for the key, and I know that I can get through to the other side."

"Yeah! That's exactly how I feel. I didn't know how to explain it, though. You're so good with words, Sempai."

She kept looking at the key, now trying to sort out what Yu had said and what she understood from it. Yu's arm slid off hers and rested on her flank. He had dozed off, again; his breath was almost uncomfortably hot against the back of her neck. She craned over him to look at the clock. It was only 4:34; they could stay there a couple more hours. She snuggled back down against him and dozed off, the key under her hand. She felt warm and loved and cuddled and just amazingly _happy_. Any hardships they had to put up with in being together would be worth it.

Hardships, yes. She had also meant to talk to him about Kuma's _lovely_ website and the publicity she had gotten from that. The paparazzi were ruthless. She was somewhat used to it, and had in a way signed up for it when she became an idol, but Yu had never agreed to any of that. A shell of euphoria drained from her head and she dropped onto the pillow. He was always putting up with stuff because of her career. It wasn't fair. He deserved a lot better. Well, he could have pretty much any girl he wanted-she knew the other girls on the Investigation Team, and quite a few others in school, had fallen in love with him-and whatever the hell he had going with Yosuke-but he chose _her_. He wouldn't have to put up with any of this media crap with any of the other girls, and they were all awesome in ways she could never be, and he still chose her. Still stayed with her.

She squinted when blue light started bleeding through her closed eyes, blinked a few times, and looked up. She had fallen asleep with her hand over the key. A blinding wire of blue light traced the bathroom door, which she could have sworn had been open. She shielded her eyes and slid out of bed. The blue light cut a sharp contrast in the room, which was predominantly reds and pinks, so the door seemed pasted onto the fabric of reality. The glare cut, and she could see the door was indeed closed, and now Prussian blue with gold leaf in symmetrical, butterfly-esque patterns. There was no doorknob.

"Rise."

She had not noticed Yu's approach. He draped a bathrobe over her shoulders, which she automatically pulled on and tied, and dropped the key in her hip pocket.

"What is this?" said Rise.

"It's the Velvet Room door. We should go in."

She nodded and swallowed. Yu grip was steady. Kanzeon's ghost pushed her shoulders, and she felt her drawing her toward the door with a wire of power around her heart.

_It's safe. Don't be afraid._

She reached the threshhold and touched the door with her fingertips. She heard a heavy clank, a lock disengage, and shielded her eyes from a sudden flood of blinding light.

* * *

Her vision faded back, low, in a dimly-lit, midnight-blue room with the flash of a mirror to her right and bright flowers against a near wall. As her eyes adjusted forms solidified out of the blue, differentiated as independent objects only by subtle shadows in ambient blue light. She seemed to be in a narrow dressing room with a vanity and closet. A long table against the far wall held bundles and vases of deep red and white roses, purple lilac, bundles of tulips, camellia, carnations, hydrangea.

The white chrysanthemum was unexpected. It burned into her eyes, still a burst when they were closed. Her stomach soured.

_Remember, you are mortal. Remember, you will die._

"Do not be alarmed. The white chrysanthemum means 'truth' as much as it means 'death'. They are just two ways of conceiving of the same concept."

There were now two people by the velvet couch in the center of the room. Their skin was so white it seemed to glow against the room and their clothes. Sitting was an old man, stooped and rickety with bloodshot eyes and wild, white hair at the base of a bald crown, but clearly of sharp mind. At first, she thought he had some sort of fleshy beak, or was a bird-human hybrid, but she realized that was actually his nose. He wore a subdued, but clean, suit, with white gloves, and looking at him she tasted tobacco and old books at the back of her throat.

The young man standing next to him wore what looked like a bellhop uniform, with a blue sailor cap and double-breasted coat in bright blue, and blue stripes down the outside of black pants. He had swept back his white-blonde hair and seemed, in every way, pristine-white gloves and clean angles and long legs. He was holding a thick leather-bound grimoire by his hip.

They both seemed oblivious, or indifferent, to the fact they were only in bathrobes, and had entered from a love hotel.

"If you look closely, you will see there are other flowers hidden there."

The old man was talking from behind his folded hands. She took a few steps forward and could now see across the narrow room star-pointed flowers growing from bursts of gold amid the chrysanthemum.

"Edelweiss is the flower of strength." The young man was talking now. "You must harbor within yourself great courage that blooms in the face of death. This room reflects the mind of the visitor."

"Welcome to the Velvet Room. This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter." The old man's voice had an odd inflection. "I am Igor, the Proprietor of this place. This is Theodore, my assistant."

"You may call me Theo. I will be accompanying you on your journey." Theodore gestured toward the couch opposite himself. "Please, have a seat. I have never before had more than one patron visit here at once."

Rise and Yu sat on the couch opposite the coffee table from the attendants. It was plush, silken velvet, and smelled of dried flowers and old incense. Yu was looking the place over, seemingly as confused as she was.

"Where is Margaret?"

"Ah, she will be pleased you remembered her," said Igor. "Margaret has more freedom now that I have Theodore here to help me. He is my apprentice attendant. She will be around. "

"My sisters both wanted to see more of the world outside this room," said Theo. "Apparently, meeting people has ignited in them a thirst for adventure and firsthand experience. I hope I shall have the same experience."

"Uh, well..." said Yu. "No promises."

Igor smiled behind his hands. "Just be yourself, and all will be fine. Now, then. Theo is right in that we don't often have two visitors come here at once. You see, the setting is created by the mind of the person who comes in here. As it is the young girl's first visit, this is the backstage to her journey. Her dressing room. Few people have the honor of seeing another person's Velvet Room. She must deeply trust you for you to have been able to follow her here. Now, then."

Igor waved his hand, and a parchment fluttered to the table. It was the contract Rise had signed in the alley.

"Kujikawa Rise-san, is it? Hm." He peered at her over his hands. "It has been a long time since my master Philemon sent me somebody directly, a long time indeed. You are the second such person to visit us in a very short time. Very curious, indeed..."

Rise looked at Yu, who looked as surprised as she felt. "The second one..?"

"It seems my master has reason to believe a challenge is coming that requires greater flexibility of those who have the power of Persona. But he is asking of me a great deal. Few people naturally possess the ability of the Wild Card. In theory, all conscious beings are capable of that openness, but it comes more easily to some than others. Narukami Yu-san is a rarity. He is a _natural_ Wild Card. His most innate personality is that of flexibility and empathy. I see within you, also, great flexibility and potential. You shall come to this ability more easily than most. Now, then."

Igor waved his hand, and seven cards arranged themselves on the table, across ghost lines of a magic circle. Their backs had the same half-face logo as Rise's key.

"Let us have a look at your future. Do you believe in fortune telling? Each reading is done with the same cards, but the results are always different." He cackled quietly. "Life follows the same principles, doesn't it? Now, then, let's see about your near future."

He waved his hand over the spread, and the uppermost left card flipped itself over. The designs on the cards were in bright colors, bold, cut like stained glass. This card had what looked like a person sitting up in bed, face buried in hands, while an array of swords floated above them.

"The Nine of Swords. Mental anguish. Guilt. But you will notice that the swords of fate over which this person cries are from their dreams. Perhaps your worst fears are just that. Very interesting. Your far future is..."

He waved his hand, and the uppermost right card flipped over. The card showed a human shadow hanging by its ankle, framed by concentric circles of barbed wire.

"The Hanged Man. Your ordeal will continue. But if you have the strength to endure, you will survive it. Very interesting, indeed."

He waved his hand over the spread, and the cards disappeared.

"You have a bond with your Persona, Kanzeon, that can never be broken. As she is closest to your heart, she will always be there for you to call. She is the facade you naturally present to the world. But a trial is approaching that will require you more flexibility of power. If my master sent you here, it must be so."

Igor looked up. A card fluttered from the dark sky and landed on Rise's lap, back-up. She turned the card over.

"It's blank."

"It will fill in when you most need it."

Her stomach sank. Yu squeezed the hand she had rested on the couch.

"The Velvet Room will always be here when you need it," said Theo. "You will find the door in a convenient place. Only those with the key can see it. Now, if you have no more questions, you may go for now. You seem to have been... occupied."

He was blushing. He straightened and adjusted his hat as Igor laughed quietly. So, he wasn't as naive as he seemed.

"Never mind him. He's still new to meddling in human affairs."

Rise clutched the card. The face was blank, grey void in a gold frame, and she sensed no energy from it. It was inert, like a canvas, but in that it held potential. She did not know where to even begin questioning. After a few moments, Yu stood, and she stood next to him, clutching the card in both hands.

"As questions come to you, you can always return. Well then, until next time."

Rise nodded, realized that maybe she should bow, and she and Yu walked back out the door into blinding light.

The clock read 4:40. They could not have been gone only six minutes. Time had to stop when they were in the Velvet Room. Didn't Igor say it existed outside of time and space?

Yu placed his hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Rise nodded and held the card out. It hovered over her hand, and she clenched her fist, drawing it back into herself. Yu drew her into a tight hug and kissed the top of her head.

"Are you hungry?"

"Starving."

They had to leave separately. Though the Clamshell, despite its name, had a reputation for discreetness (which, ironically, drew out the paparazzi who were hoping for a chance sighting), she would still take no chances. She told Yu to follow her out in twenty minutes. She still had the black wig from the studio, and decided not to wear sunglasses, as that tended to arouse suspicion, and tried her best to look like a flustered high school student. Middle-aged men were always bringing girls in. Nobody would find that surprising.

She stood outside for a moment, chewing on her lip as though conflicted, and looked down at a gift box in her hand (it was actually the box for the shower cap from the room). She finally put the box in her bag and tried to look like she was terrified, but trying to look like she wasn't.

Her shoes crunched the gravel when she stepped into the parking lot. It was typical for a love hotel-high solid walls, slate grey concrete like the sky. Kanzeon grabbed her attention. Something was wrong. There was an unpleasant presence that tickled at the fringes of her mind. She shivered as a shock ghosted through her, raising the fine hairs on the nape of her neck and her forearms. She couldn't resolve the threat. It remained vague, gnawed at the pit of her stomach.

_It can't be human. Normal humans can't shield themselves from Kanzeon like this._

She kept walking. Her back knotted up and she glanced at the cars with suspicion. This place was too open. She would feel better once she got out-

"Kujikawa Rise."

She froze and cursed. It _couldn't_ be the paparazzi. But in shock she had made a huge mistake: she froze, responded to her name. It was a split second, but to any paparazzi it would be a huge flag. She turned around, chewing on the crook of her finger. The first flash blinded her. She acted overwhelmed, drew back with her arm over her eyes, as though unused to flashes that intense.

"Are you talking to me?" She was squeaking. She stumbled backwards and tripped. The flashes had stopped long enough for her to see three men advancing on her, one with a massive camera, one with a video camera, one trying to hold the boom steady. The video camera's light was red. "What are you doing?"

"It's no use. You've as good as confirmed who you are. We know it's you."

She stood and dusted herself off, never taking her eyes off him. "What are you talking about? Are you trying to scout me? I don't do stuff like that!"

"It's no use trying to leave separately. We know you sent a text to Narukami Yu asking him to meet you here."

Her stomach dropped out. "How did you get that information?"

"Oh, so it _is_ true."

"We saw you eating a chocolate coronet earlier." The other men were starting to ask questions. "Does this mean you're letting yourself go now that you've found a man?"

"Wha-what the hell kind of question is that?"

"So you really aren't so innocent after all, are you?"

"You have a lot of young girls as fans. What do you think of the example you're setting for them?"

Another camera flashed behind her. She scrabbled around, scattering gravel. Another group was blocking the only exit. She squeaked and backed up, trying to look terrified and confused, more than livid. Flash. Flashes from all sides. How did she not sense them?

"What the hell are you assholes doing here?"

That was the first cameraman she had faced. One of the guys in the other group yelled back.

"Back off. We agreed this area was our turf."

"We didn't agree on shit! We are not passing up this tip."

_Tip?_

Now the fear and confusion wasn't so fake. They had closed in. They were way too close for her disguise to be of any use anymore. Somebody grabbed her wig, grabbing a fistful of her real hair in the process, and yanked. She screamed. It felt like he was going to yank her scalp off.

"Get your hands off me, asshole!"

She reached behind herself and grabbed the man's wrists, but he was far too strong for her to do anything. The man jerked sideways, hard, and she screamed as he half-dragged her to the ground, but he released her. She pulled the wig the rest of the way off and clutched her scalp. Yu was standing over the man, panting and rubbing his fist. The man was clutching his ear. He scrabbled backwards and tried to stand.

"Don't move."

Flashes. Booms bounced above them. Rise cursed. Yu had taken the bait. They were currently photographing a livid student standing over a groveling photographer. His knuckles were split. He licked the blood off. His voice was calm, but he was shaking, burning cold. The man tried to get up, and Yu's pupils contracted as he lunged forward, drawing his fist.

"I said DON'T MOVE!"

"Yu, stop!"

Her stomach dropped out as soon as she said that. She had identified him. She swallowed and scrambled to her feet, gravel fell out of the cuffs of her jeans, and grabbed Yu's free arm. He did not look away from the photographer.

"I'm all right. This asshole isn't worth it."

"He assaulted you."

The man spat on the ground. "Prove it, you little shit."

"Our word isn't enough?"

"Stupid slut freaks out when she gets nailed and accuses us of assaulting her. Tries to make herself look like the victim. All women do that shit when they get caught."

Yu lunged to his knees and grabbed the man by the collar. The flashing intensified. Rise was clenching her teeth with rage, but the reality of the situation was keeping her from losing it. They were going to ruin Yu's life, because of her. She had to get him to stop.

"It's none of your fucking business what she does with her body. Her body is her own. "

The man tsked and spat on the ground again. "You say that because you're the one getting to fuck 'er."

"So, what's it like to have sex with Risette? Is she as perfect as she looks on TV? Does she have any birthmarks?"

"How does she really look without makeup?"

"How did you talk her into sleeping with a nobody like you? Are you blackmailing her?"

The other photographers had started chiming in. They closed in on Yu, still snapping pictures, and Rise backed away from the circle. This was bad. Damn it, Yu, why do you have to lose your temper _now_?

"How wild is she in bed? What can you talk her into doing?"

"Has she let you in through the back door yet?"

"You know we'd pay good money for any pictures or videos you have. You'd never have to worry about money again."

_"What I choose to do in bed is none of your fucking business!"_

The shriek echoed off the concrete walls. The paparazzi turned to stare at her, shocked enough to stop snapping pictures for a few seconds. Yu stepped over to her.

"Why do you care? Is your life so pathetic you have to go around asking these questions?" Her voice was still rising, cracking. Yu put his hand on her shoulder and hissed for her to lower her voice, but she ignored him. "I may be an idol, but I still have a life! Would you want people trying to pry into every part of your life? _I am not public property!_ Why do you act like I'm accountable to everybody?"

"Sweetheart, it's just a job." The cameras had started flashing again. The man talking was holding a boom over her. "I couldn't care less what you do with your time."

"Why would you take a job where you ruin people's lives?"

"The money's good. Especially when we get stuff like this."

"You vultures." Yu's protective grip on her shoulders tightened. Something was tickling at the back of her mind again. She turned just before another clot of paparazzi jogged into the complex and Yu drew her closer. He was shaking now.

"Hey!" That was the first cameraman who had spoken to her. "What the hell are you clowns doing here? Get out!"

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"

They all looked up. Kuma was standing on the wall with his hands on his hips, puffed up with enough bravado that Rise knew he was going to do something incredibly stupid.

"Kuma!" she shrieked.

"You pizza-razzi are harassing my friends who have committed no sin greater than being in love. As an ally of beautiful women in love everywhere, I won't stand for it! I am a soldier of love and justice in a furry suit!"

_Please don't do the arm thing-_

He did. "I am Kuma! And in the name of Mayonaka TV, _I will punish you!_"

Kuma jumped off the wall, overbalanced, and landed flat on his arse in front of them. He scrambled up and dusted himself off.

"Now I'm really pissed off!" He was trying to crack his knuckles-clearly something he had picked up from Kanji-but it wasn't working. The paparazzi were still stunned. One of their faces lit with recognition, and he started poking at his smartphone. "I heard all the _rude_ questions you were asking! That's now how you're supposed to talk to a lady!"

"Kid, she ain't no lady. Do you know where you are?"

"That's him!" The guy with the smartphone pointed at Kuma. "The guy who made that original website! Kumada or whatever."

"That's right! And I'm not gonna let you hurt my friends!"

"You are all trespassing." They all looked up again. Naoto was standing on the wall where Kuma had been. "The pictures you took are proof of that. They're all obviously from inside this parking lot. Get off this property, now!"

"What the _hell_ is going on?" yelled one of the paparazzi.

"Do you honestly think we give a fuck about that stuff, kid? Try and sue us. Our clients will defend us."

Naoto jumped off the wall and landed in a crouch. She ran up to Yu and spoke in a low voice.

"Everybody uses digital media nowadays. Send out an electromagnetic impulse and destroy their data."

Rise's heart rose as Yu's eyes opened in realization. _Oh my God, Naoto-kun. I have never loved you as much as I do right now._

"Can he summon his Persona out here?" said Kuma.

"Izanagi!"

Yu clenched his fist down, a card shattered in blue light, and Izanagi rose behind him. The paparazzi looked shocked. Some of them were moving on to terrified. Yu thrust his hand out, and Izanagi followed him, gathering electricity that arced across his fingers. He clenched his fist and a concentric wave burst out. Rise felt the shock a few seconds after the wave had passed through her. The paparazzi had reflexively ducked, but cautiously began to poke their heads up.

"What the hell was that?" one yelled.

"Your electronics have been fried." Naoto's voice was calm, but she looked quite pleased. "Now get the hell out of here."

"What?"

They all started checking their equipment. There were yells of shock, then growls of rage. They were all glaring at Yu and Naoto now. Kuma made a small quailing noise and backed up toward them.

"I think you pissed them off."

All three factions were united now in blind rage. Rise braced herself for the inevitable charge, but they didn't move. They all straightened, glowering, but something was wrong. Yu's grip on her wrist twitched; he clearly realized this as well. Something dark and terrifying was sublimating off of them, clotting into a dark mass above their heads. The light was inverting. Space was distorting, and she felt a sheer wave pass through the parking lot, flipping the dimensions. The sky was now blood-red, and the perspective warped. The wall stretched at least twenty meters into the sky, still slate gray cinderblock. The cars had swollen, hunched menacingly, and the hotel itself was nauseatingly staggered. They all backed into a circle as the black form lurched, surged higher, and started to take a slightly anthropomorphic form.

"Kanzeon!"

The Lovers card shattered over her palm, and Kanzeon stood behind her, lowering the ring over her eyes. She could see the statistics, now, analysis and fluctuation. The black mass was throwing off terrifyingly high levels of power.

"This space is really unstable. It's dangerous."

"What's that over their heads?" said Kuma.

"It's a massive malevolent power coming out of them. I think their rage is collecting into a shadow."

"None of us has weapons," said Naoto.

She registered the flashing warning on her screen before she could open her mouth. The mass sent out a massive shock wave. Kanzeon barely had time to generate a forcefield around her, which took the brunt of the shock, but the wave still slammed her into the ground. Yu, Naoto, and Kuma were blasted back. Kuma and Naoto smashed into the wall meters apart with a sickening crunch. Yu landed on his neck. Rise finally gasped around the blow to her chest and screamed, ran over to Yu and collapsed to her knees. She lifted his head as Kanzeon placed the analysis ring back over her eyes. He was gravely injured, but still alive. She shrieked his name and started sobbing. Naoto and Kuma were badly banged up and knocked unconscious, but they were in better shape.

_Another attack is coming from the left!_

She looked up and thrust out a forcefield that cut the wave, but still knocked her back, dragging Yu by his shoulders with her. The forcefield was strongest at its source, in front of Rise and Yu, but took some of the edge off the hit to Kuma and Naoto. She was starting to black out. She caught herself on her hands and tried to focus, looked up at the mass of shadow-men rooting the target to the ground. They were powering up again. She closed her eyes and clasped her hands, summoning a healing force, but she was weak, and Kuma and Naoto were on the edge of her range. She opened her eyes as Kanzeon screamed for her to watch out, but the field was up late this time. She slammed back into the wall, grunted, and slid down. Her vision slowly returned.

Kuma and Naoto might hold on for a little while. Yu was going to die. The data fizzed out and distorted; Kanzeon was also badly hurt. None of them could take another hit.

_No._

Her eyes were blurry with tears, though she was too tired to sob. She tried to move forward and fell onto her hands.

_It can't end like this! Not after all we've been through! Not now!_

_Why can't I help them? I'm so useless! Why am I always the one being protected?_

_I can't send up forcefields forever. They're not tired at all. We won't last. I have to attack them._

She reached for the Wild Card in her blood, but she was blind with panic and exhaustion. Her brain was too shot to hold on to any idea, any Persona. Even Kanzeon was slipping away. She started crawling toward Yu, collapsed, and reached for him. Her heart was going to rip itself in half.

_Don't go where I can't follow! Please!_

The shadow was powering up again. She closed her eyes and screamed, silently, directing that violence inward.

_I'll follow you into hell! Just don't leave me! I'd rather die than be without you!_

* * *

_She was standing close enough to the pyre for the flames to scorch her cheeks. Burning ash drifted snow-like onto her nose, her face, into her eyes, onto her bare arms. Her heart was burning with that fire. She could see the outline of the body, where the flesh has burst and oozed-the flesh she knew intimately from their marriage bed-and cracked, the fat starting to sizzle._

_She had seen burnings before. She knew the body would split, the bones would crack, the marrow turn to ash. Every split in her husband's body she felt in her own. But she could not force herself to look away. Her eyes were too dry from the heat and sobbing to close. _

She closed her eyes and dropped deep down into herself, suddenly calmed by decision. She felt her father's ignorance and hate as suffocating flame in her chest, but with her resolve, it calmed to a banked coal she held close to her heart. It flared, and its power blushed along her arms, singing hairs. Her chest cleared, as if a clean rain had fallen.

It's my fault people dishonor him.

_It's my fault he's going to be slandered like this._

"Let me be reincarnated the daughter of a man I can respect."

Her father realized in the instant before she lit, a spark suspended in time, and his eyes widened as she ignited.

_"I'd rather die than be without him!"_

_With burning would come release. Her soul would spin out into the sky with her ashes, and maybe, she'd be reborn to meet him in another life. She grasped the burning wood, refused to let go with the first pulse of agony, and started to climb up. The soles of her feet and her palms had charred off. She was standing on open muscle, gaping wound, and the blood boiled off the splintered wood._

* * *

_"I'd rather die than be without you!"_

* * *

Rise opened her eyes. She was floating in a void. There was no pull of gravity to orient her. She uncurled and stood, looking around. She was utterly alone.

_You are not alone._

She turned and gasped. Another woman was standing across from her. She blazed, dress and hair charred-black, flames smoldering in the creases, reflecting off the gold in her hair and on her wrists. The lower half of her face was masked, but her eyes were uncovered.

Rise reached out to her, and, mirroring her, the goddess reached for her hand. Their fingertips touched. She saw herself reflected in her eyes, experienced as her the pain of loss, the guilt and rage at the way they had treated her beloved that led her to ignite herself. A flutter of an eyelid back, and she was all of the women who had jumped into the flames rather than lose half of their heart, so together they would ascend to the night sky.

She focused back. This woman who was a reflection of herself stared for suspended moments.

_"I am thou. Thou art I. Call my name, and I will lend you my power."_

Rise nodded. Power was burning up through her, from her heart and the pit of her stomach. It blazed through her veins to her fingertips. The goddess nodded. Rise knew her name, as she knew her own, recalling it from the depths of the unconscious.

"Sati!"

* * *

The Aeon card shattered over her hand. She drew the power into her fist and flung it into an arc, as Sati did before her, and the sheet of fire crashed into the shock wave. The backdraft from the neutralization almost threw Rise back, but she braced herself and gathered power into her chest, pooling it into her hands. The Shadow was re-grouping. This was her chance. She yelled and thrust every last bit of power she had through Sati, and collapsed as a torrent of flame smashed into the line of puppets. The field around them wavered, weakened, and Kanzeon yelled in her head that now was her chance.

"Open!"

The sky ripped open. She stared up at the clouds and the red bleeding over them, and sensed the rest of the team was outside, trying to get in. The dimensional rent split down the dome over the wall, where it tore open red sky and slate until it hit the height of the original wall, so that it was notched like a rampart. The shadow roared, and the rent started to knit back closed over their heads, following the arc of the sky. Rise screamed for them to hurry up. Chie and Kanji vaulted over the notch while Yosuke stopped on the wall, helping Yukiko climb up. The rent zipped over Yosuke's head, and Rise's heart fell out until Labrys shoved both of them over and dove through herself. They crashed to the ground as the red sky sealed over the last strip of clouds. Labrys landed fluidly, rolled and pulled out her axe, and ran after Chie and Kanji.

Rise's arms finally gave out, and she folded as Sati faded, with the Aeon card floating where her chest had been. The card drifted down to Rise, who caught it with both hands and hugged it to her chest.

_You saved us. Thank you. Thank you so much..._

"Was that a new Persona?" said Yosuke.

"There's no time! You have to defeat that shadow before it charges up again!"

Yosuke dragged Naoto's body next to Yu's, with Yukiko close behind him, and she collapsed to her knees to examine them as Yosuke ran off to get Kuma. Amaterasu hovered behind her with blade-wings arced around them. She closed her eyes and touched Yu's shoulder, and he started to glow as Yosuke heaved Kuma next to Naoto and ran off. Rise closed her eyes and collapsed against Yukiko's shoulder as the warmth spread up bruised bone and diffused through muscle and skin, dampening nerves, clearing her head of tension. Yukiko hissed, and Rise opened her eyes; she was sucking on her teeth, brow furrowed.

"What is it?"

"Kuma-kun and Naoto-kun aren't too bad, but Yu-kun is very badly hurt. He needs to go to a hospital."

"You can't help him?"

"I can keep him stable. Labrys-chan contacted Mitsuru-san and the others before we jumped in here. They should be here soon."

Rise rested her head on Yukiko's shoulder and watched the battle. They were silent for a long time. Yukiko finally spoke.

"Did you... summon a new Persona?"

Rise nodded and told her in brief what had happened-about Philemon, and Igor, and Sati. Yukiko listened silently with wide eyes. The battle continued in the near distance, an obscuring, boiling mass cut with sickles of light, flashes of lightning, flashes of silver, up-bursts of wind. Finally, she spoke.

"Wow. That's... kind of like what Yu-kun can do, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Igor-that guy in the Velvet Room-called it the Wild Card. And Philemon said all this stuff about being able to empathize with people who aren't like me would give me the power to summon more Personas, because they're archetypes, or something, but anyway, if you can put yourself in their shoes, and understand how they felt, you can kind of... contact them, I guess."

"I always thought Yu-kun was the most understanding person I'd ever met..."

Rise nodded and closed her eyes. She did not know how long she dozed, but woke when she felt a release of energy, and the red sky started shattering like glass. It ripped itself apart, and they were in the Clamshell parking lot again. The paparazzi were passed out in a heap. The four combatants looked shattered, bleeding and drained, but were still sturdy. Mitsuru was leaning against one of the cars, arms crossed. They all moved toward the injured party. Kanji yelled when he saw Naoto and dashed over to the group, crashed to his knees and slid his arm under her shoulders to lift her.

"Naoto! Wake up!" He shook her gently. "Naoto!"

"She's going to be fine," said Yukiko. "Stop shaking her."

"Oh my God." Chie stopped next to them and bent double, bracing herself on her knees and panting. "Yu-kun!"

"They need medical attention," said Mitsuru. "There is a hospital a few blocks away. It will be faster to carry them."

Kanji stood with Naoto in his arms. Labrys picked up Yu, and Yosuke hefted Kuma onto his back. Yukiko helped Rise stand as Mitsuru stared at the heap of paparazzi, hands on hips. Her expression was unreadable.

"You guys go on ahead. Labrys should know where it is. That information should be in her databank."

She pulled out a phone and speed-dialed somebody, was waiting when Yukiko gently nudged Rise along. Kanji and Labrys were half-running far ahead, and Yosuke was straggling behind, frequently stopping to adjust Kuma.

"Fucking... figures. The biggest guy gets to carry the smallest girl."

"Yosuke-kun."

He scowled at Yukiko, but she would not stop glaring at him. He sighed and hefted Kuma higher onto his hips.

"I know! I'm just saying. Jeez."

Rise looked back. Mitsuru was standing with her hands on her hips over the fallen men. She nudged one with her toe. It was difficult to tell from this distance, but it looked like she was snarling with contempt.

* * *

Author Notes

"Boku" is the Japanese male version of the pronoun "I". Naoto uses this pronoun. If you choose the romantic route with her, she will ask you at one point if it bothers her that she says "boku"; in the English version, she asks if you wish she spoke with a higher voice. Naoto is an example of a "bokukko", a Japanese trope for which TV tropes has a good summary.

Inherent in the love hotel is that they offer short stays (measured by the hour, or afternoon), as their advertised function is to provide a private place for sex. One of the appeals of love hotels is the promise of privacy. Parking lots are usually behind high walls, and often the hotel will provide covers for license plates. Many have no windows. Money is exchanged anonymously for keys. If there is no actual person exchanging the money (who would be behind an opaque glass), one can purchase keys at a kiosk. Thus, it's feasible that the hotel staff would not notice a ruckus in their own parking lot. Hotels aren't supposed to sell keys to underage kids, but inherent in anonymity is... well, anonymity. Their popularity is even more understandable when one considers that living spaces in Japan tend to be quite small, and extended families often cohabit a confined space with paper walls. From what I have read buying condoms underage is no problem, and I think one can get free condoms at health clinics. Hormonal contraceptives (the Pill) are an entirely different and unique story in Japan, with their own set of stigma and difficulties in obtaining, but that is for further discussion later in the story. Apparently love hotels are a good option for travelers, as they tend to be rather low-cost. And you get to enjoy whatever weird decor the room has.

The Tarot deck in the Persona games only has the Major Arcana illustrated, and the minors are presented much like playing cards, as pips (i.e., ten of swords would be ten swords in a pattern). I like to imagine Igor has a fully-illustrated deck. There is as much rich symbolism and nuance in the Minor Arcana as in the Major, and that inherent value is not intuitively grasped when they are presented as pip cards. The illustrations on the Major Arcana cards are loosely based on the symbolism of the Rider-Waite deck (the most famous and 'standard' design most people think of when one talks about Tarot), so I assume those of the Minors would be as well.


	5. The wheel falls, the wheel rises

The piano tapped the back of her skull like rain. Igor was seated in the brocade armchair, as usual, fingers folded over his mouth, and Theo was leaning against an arm. The fireplace burned blue-white, blue shadows over a deep blue room, and the gaslights on the street blurred with rain on the window. This was a pastiche of Victorian masculine space, a bachelor pad, furniture in rich dark wood and shelves of books and a variety of mechanical oddities, scattered about, remnants of an eccentric, intellectual occupant, silver and brass and pulled glassware burned orange-brown with use.

Naoto knew where she was. She had always known where she was. There was no explicit cue, no visible street signs or documents with names put to them, but the realization had settled into her gut the first time she had appeared here and collapsed into the armchair opposite Igor. This was the setting of her most consistent fantasies, cast blue, the ones she held close to her chest since childhood, the room that stayed constant as her understanding of the two occupants matured with her growing up. From the one-dimensional imaginings of a child, to the ambivalent, nuanced understanding of an adult, this room never changed-not even when she consciously tried to change it commensurate with her deepening understanding of the infinite dimensions of human nature.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room." Igor regarded her over his hands for a moment, eyes narrowed. "I see you have not yet had occasion to use the blank card I gave you at your last visit. But no matter. Though your inability to use the Wild Card has come as much from lack of need, I have summoned you here to warn you of a growing darkness in your heart that is keeping you from unlocking that potential."

Naoto stared down at her folded hands. Igor waved his palm over the coffee table, and several cards flashed, at the apexes of connected lines of power, and solidified, face-down.

"Now, then. Let us look at your immediate future."

He gestured for the leftmost card to flip over. It was a Baphomet head on a red field, chains splitting two human profiles beneath it. Igor tisked quietly.

"Ah, it is much as I thought. The Devil. Enslavement. Obsession. The refusal to let go of something that is holding you back. It will chain you down. Your near future is..."

He flicked his fingers, and the card furthest right on the spread flipped over. It was a morose young man brooding beneath a tree and staring at three chalices in front of him, oblivious to a cloud that was offering a fourth chalice.

"The Four of Cups. Tribulation, introspection. A period of mourning not getting what you want. But, you will see that the young man is so focused on what he can't have, he cannot see the other beautiful things being offered him."

He waved his hand over the spread, and the cards burst, evaporated into light-dust. Igor re-folded his fingers over his mouth and looked down his nose at Naoto for a moment before speaking.

"You are angry. Why?"

The Velvet Room attendants stared at her as she twisted fistfuls of her clothes, finally looked up.

"Why the hell does everybody think they have the right to lecture me like this? Like they know what's best for me? I'm sick of being patronized!"

"Nobody is patronizing you..." said Theo.

"Lecturing me, then. I'm not as stupid as everybody seems to think I am. Just because Tatsumi-kun has an obvious crush on me doesn't mean I _owe_ him anything!"

Theo blinked and jerked back. "Nobody said you owe anybody anything. Or anything about a Tatsumi-kun. The cards speak generalities. If your mind went there first, maybe it is something to consider. The cards show you the truth your unconscious already knows."

"What, that I should _settle_?"

"Does the offered cup look any less beautiful than the ones the young man consciously desires?" said Igor. "No, this is not advice to settle. It is advice to look openly at the beauty of what is around you, with nothing holding you back. It would be against the nature of this card to 'settle'."

"The cup will not be offered forever," said Theo. "Eventually, the cloud will move on if you do not take its offering."

"Does it profit you to refuse to examine the offering?" said Igor. "If it is not what you want, you needn't hold on to it. The Four of Cups asks for no such long-term contracts, only awareness, and an equal chance. It is an offer of opportunity, not commitment. Perhaps it is your fear at seeming malleable that drives your refusal to look, as much as your obsession."

Naoto stared down at her lap, livid. Finally, Igor spoke.

"I can assure you that we in the Velvet Room have no motive, or desire, to manipulate you in a direction you don't want to go. We exist outside the web of your relationships. We exist only to guide you. We are one-hundred percent behind all of our visitors. We are the advocate of whomever is in the room at any given time. Bias does not factor into our advice. But let us put that matter aside, related though I admit it is to the one at hand. We brought you here to warn you about a challenge you will face. The Devil speaks only of the nature of the obstacle to be overcome, or of what will happen should things run their current course. But the future is not decided-it is your actions that will decide your fate. Facing oneself is not something one does only once in a lifetime. It is something that must constantly be done, as old Shadows will re-emerge if you deny the new facets of them that become evident with time."

Blood rushed out of her head, and she caught herself on the chair arms before she could hunch over. Her eyes pulsed blind, and, when they cleared, the Velvet Room was dissipating.

"It seems you are already being called back."

Light pounded the roots of her eyes. She pushed up onto her elbows and hissed. It felt as though the back of her head were nailed to the pillow. A grey-and-maroon curtain curved from the wall around her bed; it was slick, utilitarian-waterproof like the floor, where blood and disinfectant had seeped under the linoleum cracks, but she still sensed it along the back of her throat; an abject suffering, compounded time, scrubbed clean with bleach and clinical efficiency. She found the clinical detachment insulating. Well, at least, she couldn't be that seriously injured, as the doctors had left her alone still in her uniform for some unknown period of time, though she had several minor abrasions that had been patched.

She was able to stand with some difficulty, around the bruises in her bones. A knife jammed into her ribs when she took a deep breath, and she crumpled, caught herself on the bedside table. She did not know if she had cried out.

Heavy tread, footsteps approaching. Someone big in leather shoes, thin soles. Tall, given the distance between steps. That was probably Kanji. God damn it, she must have yelled.

For a moment she was enraged, though she knew it wasn't his fault; it was like some force was constantly trying to shove them together-this she pictured as Igor and Theo, or Philemon-and her gut instinct to being herded was to rebel. The anger peaked and faded when another person in softer shoes, clipped tread-probably a woman-stepped in front of him, and he stopped.

"I told you to stay in the waiting room." It was indeed a woman's voice.

"I just heard 'er yell." That was indeed Kanji's voice. "Let me through, dammit! Why ain't you doin' anything for her?"

"I am going to." The nurse pushed the curtain aside slightly, just enough to slip in. "Get out of here, or I will call security. This is a violation of patient privacy."

"He's fine."

The nurse turned, and Kanji peered over her shoulder. Naoto cursed to herself. She wanted to be alone, not bothered by people, especially not by _him_, but her brain clearly wasn't filtering her words.

"He can come in," she clarified. The nurse turned to face her fully, and Kanji leaned around the curtain. Naoto was trying to stand up straight, nonchalant, but every time she straightened her back the knife stabbed into bone, and she gasped and hunched back down. The nurse grabbed her by the waist and maneuvered her back toward the bed. Kanji stepped toward her, and stopped, hands half-out in a stopping motion, but he withdrew slightly and dropped his arms, bit his lower lip. Took a deep breath. He was clearly putting considerable effort into restraining himself.

"Shirogane-san, you shouldn't be up right now."

"I'm fine. What happened?"

The nurse guided her sitting on the bed, and helped her sit back, gently. A hiss broke through Naoto's teeth.

"I've broken my ribs, haven't I."

"Cracked. Bruised. But it's a hairline crack. I know it hurts, but please, try to be strong. And stay here! You." The nurse looked over her shoulder at Kanji. "Are you really so desperate to be helpful?"

"You're god damn right I-"

"Then sit with her and keep her from getting up."

This was the absolute last thing Naoto wanted, from the absolute last person. She pushed herself up onto her elbows.

"I don't need a handler!"

The nurse pulled the curtain closed behind her. Naoto cursed and tried to sit up, but Kanji pressed her back by the shoulder. Naoto smacked his arm away.

"Don't touch me!"

Kanji's face went slack for a moment, his eyes hollow, but he pressed his lips together and dropped into the chair by the bed. Naoto sighed and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

She couldn't look at him, not right now. As his eyes hardened after the initial shock she felt a desperate sense of loss. _The cup will only be offered for so long._ She rubbed her hand over her eyes and kept it there for a moment. Kanji next to her was a coiled presence she sensed deep in her gut, along her spine.

_What the hell is wrong with me? I don't know what I want. I'm fickle._

"'s all right." She opened her eyes. Kanji was staring over her head, arms crossed. "You're in pain. I mean, that's gonna make most people angry."

He wasn't doing a good job trying to hide his pain by glaring. Naoto's stomach lurched, sick and rotted, and she stared down at her hands.

"It was still inappropriate to lash out at you. I'm sorry, Kanji-kun."

" 's all right."

The ghost of his hand still pressed on her shoulder. The PA called a doctor to the operating room. Time clicked, in the rolling of a cart outside, approaching, there, and gone, down a hallway and around a corner.

"What happened?"

"You mean, after you got knocked out an' all that?" Kanji raked his fingers through his hair. "Kujikawa said she summoned a new Persona, somethin' about a blank card, and meetin' her new Persona because they both felt the same way, like, losing somebody, you know? I don't know. Everything's been pretty hectic. Last I saw her she was with Yu-sempai, who got hurt pretty bad, but I've been over here for the most part, I mean..."

That hung between them. Naoto looked at Kanji out of the corner of her eye. He was trying to watch her to see her reaction to hearing Yu-sempai had been injured, but failing at masking it with nonchalance. She looked down at her hands.

"Kujikawa-kun... summoned a new Persona?"

"Yeah. Don't know what that's all about."

Rapid, light steps-Kuma-coming down the hall, followed by somebody in rubber-soled shoes. He burst through the curtain.

"Nao-chan! You're okay!"

He jumped at Naoto's bed-Naoto cringed; her arms tightened in anticipation of bracing his impact-but Kanji caught him as the doctor pulled the curtain aside.

"What the hell's wrong with you? You don't jump at hurt people like that!"

"I wasn't going to jump on her!"

"Yes you were!"

Naoto narrowed her eyes. Kuma was supposed to be injured, right? Hadn't he been knocked back with her? He was currently struggling against Kanji's grip around his waist, but not showing any signs of discomfort. He had abrasions, but they were pink and shiny, healing. The doctor sighed heavily and rubbed between his eyes.

"I'm very sorry about this. I was just escorting him back to his party when he darted off-"

"It's fine. Trust me, I understand. He can stay."

"Kanji-kun, let me go! I won't jump on anybody!"

Kanji tched and released him, and he caught himself on the edge of Naoto's bed, looking her over. The doctor watched him for a long time, and pulled the curtain closed after he left. Naoto stared at that split in the cloth until she felt Kuma leaning very close to her face, and she looked at him sidelong. He backed up a little.

"You seem to be doing quite well," she said.

"Hey-yeah, wait," said Kanji. "Aren't you supposed to be hurt, too? I saw Hanamura-sempai carry you into the hospital."

"Yup! But I feel a lot better now!"

"Kuma." Naoto stared at him until she had his attention. "Did you summon Kamui back there?"

"I waited until Doctor-sensei was out of the room!"

"Kuma-"

"No! Don't 'Kuma' me! I'll hide what I really am but not if it means I have to stay in pain! That really hurt!"

Kuma glowered at her. Naoto sighed and dropped back into her pillows with a wan smile.

"I believe you've unintentionally touched on something deep, there."

"Hey!" Kanji shook Kuma by the shoulders. "If you can help her, why ain't you summoning your Persona right now?"

"I think it's easier to heal myself because I'm from the TV world. I dunno. Maybe it's because I'm a shadow or something. Besides, I wasn't hurt too bad or anything. Like, I think some bones had cracked or something and I had a lot of bruises, and I was all scraped up, but Kamui can handle that." He looked away. "I don't know how much I can help Sensei. I can try to make Nao-chan feel better."

"Then why the hell ain't you doing it?"

"Kanji." Naoto placed her hand on Kuma's shoulder. "It's fine. We should be practicing discretion. I'm not in any immediate danger."

"But you're in pain, ain't you?"

"It's not so bad." That was a lie; anything more than a shallow breath made her ribs pop with lightening rooted under her tongue. "Besides, if I can't handle this..."

If she couldn't handle this, what then, indeed. It was bearable, but this was the pain that came only of a minor injury. There are no heroes when physical pain is involved; she had read that somewhere. Everybody breaks and will do anything to stop the pain, if it gets bad enough. The most basic roots of our psyche allow for nothing else. It's the most primordial terror, where all the consciousness roots in the base of the brain, and narrows to one slash of desperation. If even this was weakening her spirits so badly...

"Hey! I have an idea!"

Kuma and Kanji helped Naoto off the bed and emerged from the curtain. Kuma was by far closest to Naoto's height, so he helped steady her, though it was unnecessary. Though her ribs hurt like hell she could walk fine, albeit stiffly. She felt Kanji hovering behind as an uneasy mass, not sure what to do or how to help. That seemed to be his default state, lately.

In a rare moment of brilliance, Kuma remembered that the restrooms in hospitals were often single-occupancy, and large, as to accommodate wheelchairs. He helped Naoto limp into the bathroom ahead of him, slid through, and tried to close the door on Kanji, who had stuck his hand in.

"What the hell you doing, bear?" he hissed. "Let me in!"

"No. It'll look weird if three people come in."

"It's already suspicious that two people are in there!"

"No it's not. If anybody asks I'll say I brought Nao-chan in here to make out. Stand guard out here."

Kanji sputtered as Kuma closed and locked the door. Naoto gingerly put the toilet lid down and sat, wincing.

"Kuma. Nobody is going to believe you brought me in here to 'make out' while I'm injured like this."

"Sure they will! We're two lovebirds in love who couldn't keep our hands off each other. No injury will come in the way of our love!"

Naoto considered arguing, but it wouldn't be worth the pain and effort, anyway.

"We could actually..." said Kuma.

"No."

Kuma made a half-vocalized whining noise in the back of his throat. Naoto glared at him until he sighed and opened his fist, released a pool of blue light that projected a Tarot card, and slashed it with the blade of his hand.

"Bear-sona!"

The Star card shattered, and Kamui popped out as though he had been curled up, flexed his hands out a few times. He was a wall-eyed, pot-bellied boiler in primary colors and chrome, hinged claws on bubble paws bolted to the top of his head, with a spike nose and a huge, mechanical grin. The rocket bolted to what could generously be called his rear was supposed to be a tail, she guessed, but it just looked like he had been speared on the tip of a huge missile. Naoto thought he looked like a deranged clown; in memory, his grin was always a more sinister, wide-eyed Glasgow smile, but looking directly at him, he seemed goofier, whimsical. She had often thought about this, as Kuma was anything but sinister, but Kamui _was_ derived from his Shadow. Whatever; at least it wasn't Kamui-Moshiri, who was bigger, weirder, and _truly_ disconcerting. And more unstable, mixed blessing that could be in battle, but certainly not here.

A sharp light, like a star, caught over her chest and flared, and cool energy flowed down her veins, through her marrow. Her ribs popped, and there was a burst of relief she feared would disappear, but the pain did not return. Her deep bruises unknotted as the wave faded at her feet, the tips of her fingers, her scalp, and she took a deep breath. The pain was dull, now.

"Thank you, Kuma."

"Ehee." He grinned and scratched the back of his head. "We could still make out."

"No."

Kanji eyed Kuma when they emerged, but the bear was blissfully or deliberately ignorant; it was hard to tell with him. The restroom door was at the crux of an alcove, so none of the staff seemed to notice. They managed to slip past the nurses and inquire in the lobby about Yu. Naoto felt guilty, leaving the ER staff with a missing patient and the resulting confusion, but this was somewhere in the back of her mind. It wasn't a prevalent concern at the moment.

Yu had been taken to get X-rays and an MRI, but the nurses in radiology said he had just been wheeled up to his own room, a few floors up. The general ward, not the ICU or anything like that-that was a good sign.

Yosuke, Yukiko, and Chie were sitting on the floor, out in the hallway, when they limped up. Kuma helped Naoto to a bench several meters down, where the rest of them moved, and she sat back gingerly. She sent Kuma to the nurses' station to request they tell the ER where she had gone, before there was an uproar, and closed her eyes and rested against the wall. The headache was threatening to come back, now; every time she moved her head her brain jostled about, heavy, ripping from its roots. Kanji stood above her, hesitating, and finally decided to sit next to her, but a respectful distance away. His tension was maddening.

Chie and Yosuke gave them a brief update on Yu's condition, while Yukiko stared off down the hall. Apparently he had cracked his spine, but not bad enough to need surgery, and he had a bad concussion, but the doctors did not find anything concerning on his MRI. Naoto dozed while Kuma returned and they went through what had happened once they had shown up at the Clamshell, but her eyes snapped open when she caught something Yukiko had just said.

"Wait. Labrys carried him to the hospital? You mean he wasn't stabilized before he was moved?"

"Stabilized? Oh, you mean how you aren't supposed to move people with potential spine injuries until paramedics show up, that sort of thing?"

"Yes, precisely 'that sort of thing'. The injuries could have been exacerbated."

"Hey," said Yosuke. "The doctors already bitched us out for this. We don't need it coming from you, too."

"I am not bitching anybody out. I am merely stating a fact."

"You don't think we don't already feel bad enough?"

"I was merely saying..."

"Shut up." Labrys was leaning out the doorway on her hands. Apparently she _could_ hear them all the way down there. "All of you, shut up. I scanned 'im before I picked him up. There was a 3.857% chance of makin' his injuries worse by carryin' him the distance to the hospital, but a 4.024% chance of time lost waitin' for the paramedics makin' him worse. I'm not stupid."

"Labrys-san," said Naoto, "I didn't mean to accuse you of anything."

"Well, yer high-and-mighty miss-know-it-all attitude is gettin' really old."

"What is _with_ you today? I'm not trying to be condescending. I was merely pointing out a mitigating factor. That information might be useful in the future."

Labrys' mouth firmed into a line, and she ducked back into the room. Naoto sighed and rubbed her temples with one hand. There wasn't anything she could remember having _done_ to Labrys, lately, to make her so standoffish. Maybe this was one of those KY things.

Yu's room was barely large enough to accommodate all of them, and the place of honor had been taken up by Rise, who was sitting by the bed and holding his hand. He was awake and talking. A knot of terror she had pushed out of her consciousness unclotted and washed down her spine. Now there was a shaking numbness. Why the hell was that stupid, vapid bitch hanging all over him like that?

_Wait, where the hell did that come from?_

She blinked a few times and rubbed between her eyes. The pain was making her irritable, clearly. These weren't her usual thoughts. She realized the talking had stopped, and everybody was looking at her with a mild look of concern.

"Naoto." Yu's voice ran down into her stomach, and she swallowed. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. It's just a slight headache."

He watched Naoto for a moment while Rise yammered on about something, annoying, shrill, vapid, clutching his hand. Yu's eyes flickered from her to Rise, and he looked back at her, brows furrowed slightly in concern. Why did he have to be so fucking perceptive?

Then Rise got to the part where she had summoned Sati with feelings of desperate, self-sacrificing love and despair, drawing the Wild Card out of her blood at the last moment. Her description of the hallucinations, and the compounded memories, moments of empathy, were vivid. And the whole time she was clutching Yu's hand. Yu smiled and squeezed her hand. Nobody else would have noticed that. Why did it have to hit Naoto so hard?

_Obnoxious. Yes, we all know you saved him with the power of love. Fucking good for you, useless skank. It's all you're good for, drawing energy from some guy. Relating to women who didn't have a fucking sense of self and jumped onto their husbands' funeral pyres. Pathetic. Now you're shoving it in all our fucking faces. _

Naoto stumbled back into Yosuke, who said "Whoa" and steadied her; she shoved him away. Now everybody was staring at her. She stared down at her shoes, not wanting to meet their eyes. Especially Yu's.

"I'm sorry." She briefly touched Yosuke's arm. "You startled me. I'm still rather jumpy."

"It's fine, whatever, but what's wrong with you?"

Everybody was still staring at her. _Nobody look at me. Everybody stop looking at me._

"I need to be alone for a bit."

They parted to let her through, and she padded out into the hallway, leaning on the wall, staggering. She paused several meters down and rested her head in the crook of her arm.

_What the hell is wrong with me? That's now how I actually feel. I don't believe any of that._

Her head split-not in a painful way, but it felt like the two hemispheres of her brain had detached for a second. She took a deep breath.

_Calm down. I'm far more enlightened than that. I'm just angry, and hurting. I don't really think like that. _

_I'm not a misogynist bitch like that._

_I don't believe that stuff._

_I'm not effected by society's attempts to pit women against each other like that._

_Yu is gone. I've made peace with that. I've got to move on._

_I don't think I'm better than her just because she's so feminine. I'm not femmephobic like that._

_I'm better than that._

_I'm better than her._

She smashed her fist against the wall and grit her teeth. She almost blacked out, staggered for a second, and caught herself. She fell to one knee and rested her forehead on her arm.

_Then why the hell did he lead me on like that? Always so fucking infuriatingly understanding and non-judgmental and-amazing-_

_I'm the only one on his intellectual level._

_He's amazing and brilliant and unreal. Why is he with _her_?_

Her brain and spine were being ripped out, such that she pictured ligaments tearing, the brain being ripped off the brainpan.

_I'm the Detective Prince! I'm a genius! I'm brave, and cool, and independent, and strong. How could he choose that vapid slut over me? I'm the only one worthy of him._

_Is that how you did it, you useless slut? Just look pretty and spread your legs and hang all over him and revolve around him? Is it because I'm actually my own person?_

"No," she hissed. "No, no, no. No."

_Rise is kind and smart and funny and just an amazing person to be around. She's fun and true to herself and brave. Just because she's really girly doesn't mean anything. That stuff doesn't mean anything. That doesn't make me better than her. Because that isn't a bad thing._

"No."

"Naoto-kun..."

Rise placed her hand on Naoto's shoulder. Naoto jerked around, snarling, and whacked her hand away, clutched where she had wrenched her ribs.

"Don't touch me, you vapid cunt."

_No._

Rise staggered back. Now Naoto was outside herself, detached, a ghost superimposed over her own body. She was pulling apart.

"Stop pretending that you give a fuck about everybody." Her voice was splitting, two-tones, like a signal being ripped apart. The ghost wanted to pull away, to run, but she was rooted. "I don't need sympathy from you. You're so fucking perfect, always forgiving people and martyring yourself. Don't you fucking dare make me look like the bad guy. You think you have everybody fooled, acting so sweet like that. Conniving slut."

_No._

Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized what was happening, that she couldn't reject this monster-that it really did come from herself. But not now. Not after what she'd said.

Then everybody would know what she really was.

"Naoto-kun..." Rise was backing up. "It's okay. You can't help how you feel. We're all the same deep down. You have to accept that."

"SHUT UP!"

She released a wave of energy that knocked Rise back. The surroundings were growing dark; she could only focus on Rise, sprawled on a small patch of linoleum floor. The last bit of her sanity knew that everybody was staring at her, everybody had to have come out of the room by now-she looked up, and saw everybody, Mitsuru, Labrys... Kanji, staring at her, and she screwed her eyes shut and curled up inside herself.

"Don't look at me!"

"Naoto-kun!" Chie was trying to keep her voice level. "It's okay. You don't have to be ashamed. Everybody has sides like this, remember?"

"NO. Not like _this_! I'm not like _this_!"

Naoto crumpled, a frail, ghost-white marionette with cut strings, and the Shadow straightened her back and raised her head, a surge of black ink in an ocean of stars. One figure stabilized, amid the flashing, ghosts lilting like a silver fin, flashes of lightning in a boiling cloud. It was Naoto in a perfect black suit, ink-black and bleach-white, blinding, though the lines in her face had sharpened, carved out in shadow, and a cape, or a cloak-a lab coat, then a duster, then an opera cape-flickered and changed, a broken neon sign.

Rise released her breath. The Shadow was cold, pulled the oxygen from her blood. Yukiko called to her and grabbed her by the upper arm, pulled her off her knees, back into the group. Yosuke was backing up and mumbling "Shit shit shit shit shit-" Chie was saying "Oh my god" in a small voice. Kanji's face was unreadable, drained. He pressed his lips together so hard they turned white.

Rise looked around for the first time since she had grabbed Naoto's shoulder. The nurses at the station were terrified At least one had a camera phone out. Kuma made a quailing noise.

"This is bad," said Yosuke. "This is really, really bad."

"We can't fight in here!" said Chie. "People are going to get hurt."

"No shit!" Yosuke looked around wildly, turned, saw the nurses and cursed. "What the hell do we do now?"

"I've already called Mitsuru-san."

Labrys ran in front of the group, drew her axe, and braced through a blast, a moment, and then, she fell to one knee, the head of the axe smashed to the ground. Her arms shook.

"Labby-chan!" Kuma ran out next to her. Shadow Naoto stared at him blankly. "Nao-chan! Please don't fight!"

He rolled and dodged another wave Naoto sent out, caught himself against the wall and growled. The wave slammed into Yukiko and Rise, and Rise's vision went out, momentarily, and she fell to her knees. It-wasn't an attack, though. She didn't feel pain. But something was distinctly wrong.

She tried to stand, but she was paralyzed, and she stumbled forward, caught herself with her hands on her knees. This was one of those nightmares, where she was running from something, but she could barely move, like she was glued down, where when she tried to strike out, her blows barely tapped her assailant.

"Kanzeon."

She forced her arm up, pulled Kanzeon out of the Lovers card, who materialized at her back and stabilized her. Rise braced, stood as straight as she could manage, and clasped her hands as Kanzeon lowered the visor over her eyes. Information shunted directly into her brain, compacted time, and spread out in her consciousness, snapshots, flickering past her inner eye in fractions of seconds. Mitsuru was cresting the stairs, a white-hot shadow on a heat-map, in the back of her head. Naoto-the real Naoto, crumpled against the wall-was okay, but unconscious. Shadow Naoto was starring them down, eyes flickering among their faces. The energy of furious thought, calculation, showed around her skull as a corona.

"She's debilitating everybody. She means to weaken us before she attacks."

"No shit!" said Yosuke. "What the hell do we do about it?"

"You!" Mitsuru stopped briefly to stare at the nurses. "Clear the floor. Do not allow anybody out of their rooms. This is Kirijo Group business. You, give me your phone."

"Why? Is this something you don't want anybody to see I've already uploaded it online!"

Mitsuru stared at her for a moment, but the nurse would not stand down. She tsked and brushed past the nurses' station.

"Then get out of the way. You're still a nurse, aren't you? Go secure the patients. Kujikawa! What are we looking at?"

"Naoto-kun rejected her shadow again." Rise's hoped her voice was more calm than she felt_. I can't cry. Not now._ "It's going to try to lower our defenses before it attacks. I think she's sizing us up."

"Do we have an opening to take her out before she can hurt anybody?"

"You can't!" said Kanji. "You can't hurt her! She's just... lost control of her emotions. Maybe we can talk her back down."

"Tatsumi, if _your_ emotions are going to interfere with your judgment, get out of the way." Mitsuru drew her evoker from her belt and leveled the muzzle against her head. "Artemisia!"

The ether shattered out Mitsuru's opposite temple, and Artemisia appeared, in her beak-opera mask and metal-boned corset, a gown flare-armored gold at the hips and shoulders. She flung a sheet of ice at the Shadow's feet, which froze her to the ground; a sheet at the Shadow's torso, which bound her arms. The shadow growled and yelled in that split-voice.

"Don't get in my way!"

Shadow Naoto flung her arms wide, and the ice binding her arms shattered, fell like broken glass.

"Naoto!"

Kanji ran forward and stared up at the shadow. She hesitated, backed up for a moment. The corona around her skull flared, knotted, scrambled, purple with nova-depth, and it burned into Rise's eyes. Shadow Naoto shook her head, growled, and thrust her hand out, but Labrys darted in front of Kanji and took the blow, hard. She skidded back several feet and collapsed to her knees.

"It's all right."

Yu had dragged himself to the door, ashen, tugging his IV stand with him. He held a hand up when people started to protest and slowly lurched through the crowd, toward the shadow. Shadow Naoto stopped as soon as he had appeared; her brain flared, froze in shock. It was stuttering-something beyond that level of consciousness was trying to push through, and jamming.

"Izanagi-no-Okami!"

He held his hand out, though he was barely holding himself upright with the IV stand, pulled the Judgement card into his fist, and Izanagi-no-Okami materialized before him, wavering like a mirage. Izanagi stepped forward on air, dragging his blade along the ground, and the shadow hesitated, backed up a little. Izanagi stopped; Shadow Naoto stared at him. Her brain was white static, now. There was a burst of activity when he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms.

The air froze for a moment. It left Rise breathless long after it had happened, a shadow, or a memory in her lungs. Izanagi touched his forehead to Shadow Naoto's, and there was a flare of light.

This time the room was cast in natural light, yellow naphtha and mahogany and leather; the fire gave off real heat, glowed orange. Naoto looked up from her tight ball in the massive armchair, and saw Yu sitting across the coffee table. She sobbed and hid her head.

"Don't look at me."

She cried for a few moments, gasped, but Yu remained silent. She looked up again, briefly, and he was just staring at her with deep concern. She hid her face again.

"Get out. I don't want anybody to see me like this. I've already dishonored myself enough."

"Naoto."

Her name cut through a fog in her chest, ran down into her gut. She sniffed and looked up.

"It's all right," said Yu. "You don't have to be ashamed any longer."

"Why?"

Yu seemed to instinctively understand that 'why' was not a direct response to his statement. He waited as Naoto collected herself and swallowed.

"Why did you choose her over me?"

"...Naoto..."

"Why? Was I not-_docile_ enough? Pretty enough? Feminine enough?"

"That isn't it."

"Then _why_?"

"I don't know. I made my decision, and I am happy with it. I am not leaving Rise, Naoto. You need to let go of me."

Naoto curled tighter. She felt she should try to stifle her sobs, that it would be the noble thing to do. But she didn't. On some level, she wanted Yu to know how much she was hurting; she wanted something that was akin to pity. Sympathy? No, something that cut deeper, that cut Yu with blameless guilt. Yu gave her a moment before speaking again.

"You've ignored these feelings for so long they've poisoned you. You can't help how you feel. You have to acknowledge that. If you don't, your shadow will consume you."

"I love you. You're the only person I'll ever love."

It nagged her that wasn't true, and she wished it was, for some reason. Yu's face was unreadable.

"I never thought I would be capable of being in love with another person-or at least a real person-or at least ever see myself in a relationship with a man that I could live with. Not a man from this era, anyway. Was I at least... ever special to you? For just one day, even, did you wonder about us?"

"...yes. I did wonder. I did love you-I do love you-deeply, for everything that you are. I would never want you to change. You're brilliant, and individualistic, and stubborn, and brave, and you have such a vivid imagination. I feel honored to have seen that side of you. And you will always be somebody important to me, in a way nobody-not even Rise-could ever be. But not like that."

The pain ran mellow from the pool of her heart, soothing down to her belly. The time in her chest compounded, stretched, but it was really only a few seconds before she replied.

"If I can know I'm somebody special to you... I can live with that. I just can't stand the thought of you forgetting me."

"I will never forget you. Not if I live to be a hundred, and every other part of my life passes out of my memory. You will always be special to me."

Hollow stomach, blood rushing from her head. Something almost like numbness, but more substantial, more present and painful in a way that made her feel giddy and worldly and _alive_. A corner of her mind mourned the sudden complexity, ambivalence, rebelled against the loss of a single burning point of sorrow. Yu smiled, a flicker in her stomach, and held out his hand.

"Let's go back."

The Shadow dissipated, black sparkling in dark purple, and Yamato-Takeru hovered over them momentarily, metal shining and bleach-white, before fading into the upright Fortune card that drifted into Naoto's hands. She clutched it, curling away from the group. Izanagi sublimated in an updraft of light and a flicker of a card. Yu collapsed against the IV pole, hanging by one arm, and didn't let go even when Yosuke helped him up and led him back to his bed. They brushed past Rise, who did not move, did not stop staring at Naoto.

A silent hallway, fluorescent light and navy-flicked linoleum, painted white with sterilized illness. Naoto did not move. Yu looked up at Kanji, briefly, wondering why he hadn't stepped forward, but he stared through Naoto, face drained. Narrowing his eyes did not make them look less hollow, any more than pressing his lips together made him look more indifferent. Chie looked at Yukiko, who just shrugged. She sighed and stepped forward.

"Naoto-kun..."

"I really need to be alone for a while."

Her voice was tiny. Kuma stepped forward, but Yukiko stopped him and shook her head. He backed up and chewed on his lip.

"I'm... sorry, everybody. I'm so sorry about all of this."

Naoto pulled herself up, bracing against the wall, but her knees gave out and Mitsuru caught her under the arms. She murmured something to Naoto, and Naoto nodded, and she pulled her back up and started walking down the hall.

"Yu-kun..." Yosuke knelt next to him and put his hand on his shoulder. "What happened? I mean, did you... talk or..."

"We had a talk we should have had a long time ago. I think she's going to be all right, now. She suppressed this part of her so deeply, it must have been painful to draw it out."

Yu glanced up at Kanji. Kanji was staring down the hallway after Mitsuru and Naoto, drained, face unreadable, but he had set his mouth into a firm line. Yu felt him detaching, trying to harden his heart. He pulled himself up and put his hand on Kanji's shoulder, and Kanji tensed.

"Sempai..."

Igor flipped over the first card-a skull on blue motley.

"Death. The end of a cycle. It seems you have overcome the thing that was holding you back. Not many people break the hold of the Devil. It takes introspection, and honesty with oneself, and a great deal of strength. The move to unchain oneself is painful, and it is tempting to return to the stasis you had existed in up until now, but you may now enjoy the benefits of your resolve. Now that you are unchained, you can begin to move freely through your destiny again. You have become that much stronger. Letting go, as painful as it might be, is necessary to move on to a new cycle. You enter this cycle with the knowledge and humility you have gained in this trial. This is the basis of wisdom. But let me warn you: the Devil will always lie in wait to re-ensnare you. You must be strong."

He gestured for the second card to flip. It was two people staring at one another over goblets.

"Ah. Not exactly subtle, is it? It seems the brooding young man has broken from his obsession. The Two of Cups signifies a union, one with great creative and generative potential. This is a card of joy, and enjoying the sweet things life has to offer. It signifies a time to be cherished. But the future is not yet decided. You must still act positively to grasp the things you want."

He moved his hand over the cards, and they burst. Theo was smiling softly. Igor stared at Naoto with his fingers locked over his lips.

"You have done well. Master Philemon will be pleased. Your potential to unlock the Wild Card has grown."

_May 15, 2012 (Tuesday)  
Partly cloudy_

Naoto felt well enough to leave the hospital on her own the next morning. She signed the discharge papers for herself, and said that Kirijo-san had given her permission to leave when she felt better. Nothing of the sort had happened, but the nurse seemed reluctant to discharge her without Mitsuru's approval, and she did not want to see anybody right now.

She hesitated outside Yu's room for a while, but could not force herself to go in. The nurses had said he was fine, so she was able to put aside a nagging guilt and leave without speaking to him.

School was out of the question. She already had permission to be gone today, so why not take advantage of the opportunity to be alone? She took the train back to the mainland and wandered about the station, but she felt a nagging unease, a restlessness, and could not stay engaged even at the bookstore. The waterfront by the industrial district was every bit the archetype, bright and empty and promising seclusion, and she wanted to revel in the sense of universality and grittiness, and a very faint, distant, potential for danger. She found the perfect abandoned (well-mostly empty, but it was still clearly in use) warehouse and holed up in the corner, behind some wooden pads and a forklift, sighed, and closed her eyes. In some childish way this helped center her, as it had the atmosphere one would expect from a detective novel, and she desperately needed to meditate on the aspects of her 'self' that stood independent of her affiliations with the group.

She could keep herself engaged ruminating for about half an hour, but she started to grow restless, and wished she had thought to pick up some books at the library, or something. It was a cozy place, but without anything to _do_. She could nudge herself up between the pads in a way that served almost as well as a chair. So she thought, for a while longer, and while her mind was still racing, and would be for a while yet, she needed to _go somewhere_.

She had been sitting ready and tensed to stand up, but not actually moving, for a few minutes when she heard a dog barking. Outside, to the left, running closer. She peered around the corner, and Koromaru stopped in the hatchway, saw her, wagged his tail, barked, and turned back to bark at whomever was behind him. Yes, whomever-something in the dog's body language indicated he was trying to communicate with somebody. He kept barking, ran a few steps into the warehouse, ran back out, turned, barked.

It was hard to stay cross with Koromaru-any initial prick of irritation quickly sublimated, given his huge smile and unadulterated joy at having found her. There wasn't an ill intention in that dog's head. A human shadow cut the sunlight outside, lengthened, and Koromaru ran fully into the warehouse and jumped up to lick her face as Kanji stepped into the cool dark. She politely grasped Koromaru's shoulders and pushed him down, told him not to jump up like that, and he contented himself with turning small circles, wagging his tail, and putting his chin on her knee.

In retrospect, she wasn't sure who else she would be expecting. She also did not know if this is what she had wanted, deep down-to be discovered somewhere cool like this, as a segue into a conversation. Koro was an immensely calming presence, and she buried her fingers into his fur as she scratched his sides, up under his ears. She focused intently on his back. She felt Kanji loom over her, nervous, and he finally sat down on the floor and folded his long legs beneath him. Neither spoke for a while, and then Kanji started scratching Koromaru under his chin, up around his jaw, and Koro soaked it up. Naoto looked at his large hand, long fingers, but she could not force herself to look up. Her cheeks were hot.

"Hi," he finally said.

"Hello."

Her voice came out steadier than she felt, and she swallowed, heartened by this. Why was he already making her giddy? The idea of moving on from Yu as soon as she reconciled they were not going to be together made her feel fickle, like her feelings must not have been true, or substantial. She wanted to stay in unrequited love, for a while, if only to fully drink the sorrow, let it wash over her. This was too soon.

"You, uh..." Kanji paused for a while. "...you doin' okay?"

Naoto forced her face into an indifferent, casual expression, and looked up. Kanji blushed, but did not look away. He was actually wearing his jacket on his arms, now, and the white uniform shirt underneath.

"You bleached your hair again."

"...what?"

"Your roots were showing yesterday. They're not, anymore. I thought you were going to grow it out."

"Oh." Kanji ran his fingers through his hair. "Yeah, well, I was, but I didn't want Labrys to think I was growing it out 'cause of her. I've been thinkin' about doing it. I mean, bleach is expensive, and it's kind of a pain in the ass to maintain. Really damages my hair, too. 'sides, if I don't like it, I can always bleach it again."

"I've been considering growing my hair out."

Why the hell she was saying this to him, she had no idea. Kanji kept scratching Koro's stomach.

"Might as well. I mean, it's just hair, you know? Not like it's permanent or nothin'."

They pet Koromaru in silence for a bit. Kanji cleared his throat.

"Besides..." He was looking into the middle distance and scratching his head. "...I think you'd look good with long hair. I mean, you do what you want, you know, don't matter what anybody thinks about it."

This made her want to grow it out more, and she was angry that it did.

"Thank you."

"Mm." Kanji looked at her and smiled. "I mean it, too. I mean, you look good wearin' anything, I'm not saying that you need to, or-"

"I know." Naoto smiled in spite of herself. "It's fine. Thank you."

"I've been considering getting glasses, lately. I mean, I always had bad eyesight, just didn't want to do anything about it. Glasses look dorky. But I shouldn't give a fuck about things like that. Image ain't shit."

"You don't use contacts, then?"

"They bug me. I mean, my eyesight's not that bad, that I can't function, you know? But I get headaches when I read and stuff. And I'm really trying to do more of that. And can't be good for my eyes to always strain like that."

"Are you sure you get a headache reading because of your _eyesight_?"

Kanji blinked for a moment, visibly working this out, and looked at her sidelong. Naoto was trying not to laugh. He huffed, and glared, but was smiling a little.

"Shut up."

"But how do you sew and embroider, and things like that, if you can't see small details well?"

"I can feel them. Yarn and thread have shape, you know, and I got really good at figurin' stuff out with my fingers."

Her cheeks flared, and she looked down at Koromaru, for once glad Kanji was so slow on the uptake. She also wondered why the hell that was the first place her mind went. She coughed.

_What the hell is wrong with me?_

"Well, that's very useful. And admirable."

"Yeah, so, like, I got real good doin' things in the dark, like movie theaters and stuff like that. Or I can like watch TV and do it."

Naoto tilted her head further and coughed to hide her grin.

"You okay? said Kanji. "The dust botherin' you?"

"A little. Maybe we should go outside."

Koromaru shook himself off in the sunshine, sent out a cloud of dust that really did make Naoto cough. She waved it away.

"Koro-chan, you're filthy. You need a bath."

"Well, I guess we can go out 'n do stuff, if you want. I mean, everybody's a little worried about you, but they assumed you just went off by yourself because you were embarrassed, or something. Which is what happened, so."

Everybody. She looked down and pulled her hat over her eyes.

"...yes, let's go do something. I do not want to return quite yet."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"...not right now."

"All right."

Koromaru, satisfied that Naoto had been found, trotted off toward the dorm (or shrine, or wherever else he hung out in that area), and Naoto turned on her phone. As expected, she had a spate of text messages (twenty-one), and four voicemails. Actually, less voicemails than she had been expecting. Two were from Kuma, who wanted Nao-chan to call him back, because he was really worried about her, and they could hang out and talk about whatever, really; he wasn't judging her at all. Oh, apparently there is this one movie that just came out, about that guy who did the thing and there was this girl; had she heard of it? He was fumbling his way through a circular, nonsensical synopsis when the machine cut him off.

The second call was him finishing his synopsis, and asking, again, that she call him, that he loved her and worried about her, and he wasn't judging her for anything, anyway, yeah, he'd talk to her later, bye!

Kuma was the only person who could make 'protesting too much' seem genuine. The next message was terse and from Mitsuru-she respected her privacy and need for solace, but as she was under her custody, and given the undue publicity as of late, she wanted to know that she was safe, at least. That one actually made Naoto feel bad, and she immediately thumbed out a reply. The last voicemail was from Kanji. It was brief.

"Uh. Hi. Uh. I uh-just wanted to see if you were doin' okay. Whatever. Just call me back. Or don't. I mean, whatever. Bye."

She could not hide that she was cracking up. Kanji noticed and guessed-correctly, his paranoia informing him well for once-that she had just listened to his message. She dismissed his sputtering and opened the reply Mitsuru had just sent: "Fine. Just be back at the dorm by curfew."

"We have a fuckin' curfew?" said Kanji. "Who enforces that shit?"

"Nobody. I think Mitsuru-san is trying to convince herself she is being a decent guardian. People tend to forget how mature they were when they were younger."

There was a small shopping arcade on the way back to the dorm, faux-quaint, generic European facade, chain-store signs mounted above wooden gables of peaked woodframe buildings. The sun was setting; the cars in the parking lot shone orange and dark, the traffic sounded hurried, tired. Fatigue hung in the space between honks, impatience made salient. They found an ice cream parlor done up in iconic American 50's-retro, white tile and red vinyl and milkshakes served with the extra in a frosty metal mixing cup. But Naoto was sure no waitresses in the 50's in America had worn what amounted to sweet loli, a transparent veneer of maid cafe over a commoditized and fetishized concept of squeaky-clean suburbia through the lens of postwar occupation propaganda. Kanji drank his whole shake, and the extra in his metal cup, and the extra in Naoto's metal cup, in about half the time it took Naoto to get through her glass.

"Why are you in such a hurry to eat? You should enjoy things like this."

"I dunno. I was hungry."

Kanji ordered himself dinner somewhere in that space where they talked about everything-pretty much, other than the obvious issue. She did not realize how much time they had spent until the waitress told them that they would be closing in fifteen minutes. Naoto was wishing she had gotten dinner by that point, but did not want to burden the kitchen with a last-minute order, so they just left. It was full dark, when they got back. Also, everybody, it seemed, was hanging out in the common room, and everybody, it seemed, was unduly amused that they had returned together, at such a late hour. Well, it was actually just Yosuke, Yukiko, and Chie, but it certainly felt crowded. At least Rise and Yu weren't around.

"It's not fuckin' late," said Kanji. "It's like nine-thirty."

Naoto realized how content she was, walking back with him, after they had relaxed through conversation-and that happiness scared her, especially given that everybody else seemed to notice it. Yes, she supposed-content, more than happy, as if that was the one place in the world she was meant to be, at that time. Serenity without the dullness. But none of these gawkers needed to know that-least of all Yosuke, who was infuriatingly smug, and Yukiko, who was doing a poor job hiding her giggling. Wasn't there a word in a European language for 'a face that needs to be punched'?

Kanji seemed to agree, as he was cracking his knuckles at Yosuke the second he stepped into the room, and Naoto excused herself to study. When she returned to her room, she flopped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling, closed her eyes and soaked the silence into her bones. Should have stayed out later. She wanted one more night to center herself before facing everybody. But if things had gone later with Kanji, things could have escalated. That was becoming the subliminal thread to their interactions. Not now. Not a good idea.

_I'm fickle. I'm shallow and horrible and I don't know what the hell I want._


End file.
